


And My Heart Has A Home *Complete*

by Starry_Emerald173



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Explicit Language, Like, Mild Smut, Slow Burn, Smut, Soulmates, Swearing, catfa, really slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:48:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 33
Words: 48,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26141353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starry_Emerald173/pseuds/Starry_Emerald173
Summary: Bucky Barnes has two soulmates.One he left in Brooklyn with too many things left unsaid.One he finds in the middle of a war with too many things left undone.Seventy years of slipping through time and life...can the three of you find your way home again?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Reader, Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 64
Kudos: 268





	1. Brooklyn Born & Bound

“How can I,” Steve’s chin jerks up defiantly and oh god, Bucky thinks his heart may just break at the strength in his best friend’s - his soulmate’s - voice. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

“Punk.” Bucky scoffs as he wraps his arms around a body that’s too frail for battle.

What he means is, _I love you_. 

But Bucky isn’t Steve’s soulmate, so he doesn’t say that. He keeps it inside, just like he has for all their lives.

What he means is, _I don’t want to leave you_.

But the war isn’t giving him a choice, and Bucky Barnes may be a lot of things but a coward isn’t one of them.

“Jerk.” Stevie says as those arms wrap around him, patting Buck with a familial affection.

And that’s the last time he hugs Steve before he ships off to the theatre of war.

It’s fucking cold in France and Bucky Barnes can’t help but think of how much he used to yap about the heat of Brooklyn in August - comparing it to an undiscovered circle of hell, sweating his ass off, waiting for a breeze to come along and lift the heat for one fucking minute - and he wants to live long enough to feel that warm again.

The 107th is heading to Italy next, and he just hopes it’s warmer than France as he stomps his feet and breathes onto his hands, heading for the hotel that Command has, well, commandeered for post and supplies.

He’s got a letter to Steve burning a hole in his pocket, even though Steve can’t really write him back. And even if he did, the letters are probably so lost that the war will be over before they make it to Sergeant James Buchannon Barnes.

He can’t talk about the war, obviously.

He doesn’t want to.

Doesn’t want to talk about the endless marching and orders and shitty food and crude camaraderie between soldiers. Doesn’t want to talk about watching men die, doesn’t want to talk about pulling the trigger and being the reason men die and even though it’s necessary, he’s pretty sure every time he does it, a part of his soul is slipping away with each bullet.

So he writes about the towns they pass through, even though he knows the names will get redacted. He writes about what he wants to do when he gets home, and what he wouldn’t give for a taste of his Ma’s cooking again.

He doesn’t write about how much he misses Steve, though.

God, he misses Steve.

He’s so wrapped up in thinking about the little punk that he almost misses it - the sound of heavy breath and smacking and grunts that means a fight is happening in the alley next to the hotel.

Steve, his heart thinks and he’s moving even though he knows it’s not.

It’s a dame, and Bucky rounds the alley just in time to see her snap an impressively forceful knee into a man’s - one of theirs - groin, despite the military-issued skirt hampering her movements.

He hisses in reflex as she spins, and the world tilts off its axis as he meets your eyes.

It’s like getting poleaxed by a bolt of lightning, bones shook by thunder, and getting punched in the head all at once.

He _knows_ this feeling.

He’s known this feeling since the day he and Steve got their asses handed to them in that Brooklyn school yard.

And all he can do is stare at you, your chest heaving from the fight you very clearly finished. Your lips are parted, your skin flushed, your body coiled tightly and ready for attack.

“Came to help your buddy?” You snap and he knows that accent so intimately - Brooklyn through and through - and it just adds to that feeling of coming home that’s swelling in his chest, threatening to burst him wide open - even though your eyes are still on his, and a little clouded with confusion. “I can do this all day.”

The words jar him like nothing else could and he closes his mouth with an audible snap.

“Nope. Just heard...I’m James, uh, Sergeant Barnes. Everyone calls me Bucky though.”

You look at him like he’s crazy, and he supposes that’s a rational reaction.

“I’m not...with him…” He adds. “Honest. Just came to drop off a letter, heard noises. Looks like you handled it.”

Your stance softens as he moves out of the mouth of the alley, giving you clear access to walk out. Your gaze is still a little stunned as you draw even with him, but you can’t be as stunned as he feels.

His heart is racing, he realizes, as your hand unconsciously rests over it.

“Is this…” You wet your lips and he has to bite back an audible groan because he’s never seen lips that he’s wanted to kiss so badly. Not even Steve’s. “Are you feeling this too?”

He nods, mutely. It’s all he can do.

He has a soulmate.

He has _another_ soulmate.

“I feel a little punch drunk,” You confess as you pull your hand back. “I’m y/n. I guess you’re my soulmate, Sergeant Barnes.” The little smile on your lips helps him snap out of it.

“Well, at least buy a guy a drink first.”

Your laugh is the best thing he’s heard since he crossed the Atlantic.

He gets a lot of shit from the guys in the 107th when he shows up in the tavern shined up like a new penny. Well, as nice as he can in his army-issued dress and limited supplies.

“What’s with the…” Dugan asks as Bucky sidles up to the bar, asks for a bottle and two glasses. Those caterpillar eyes raise. “Hot date, Sarge?”

Bucky nods, but Dugan isn’t letting him off that easy.

“Hey, fellas,” He booms and half the damn place turns. “Sarge has a hot date.”

Wolf whistles, claps, boos, jibes. Bucky just rolls his hand to say ‘yeah, yeah, get it out of your system, you mooks’ and then you walk through the door and he’d be a goddamn liar if the stunned look on Dugan’s face isn’t the best kind of payback from the universe for being cold and frozen and a thousand miles from home.

“Jesus, Barnes.” He says as they both watch you cross the tavern, turning heads the whole way, which makes Bucky want to snarl ‘mine’. “Where’d you find her?” He glances over, sees Bucky’s face and lets out a low whistle. “Soulmates, huh?”

Bucky nods as you stop a foot or so away, giving him a chance to decide if he wants to introduce you or not.

Not, he decides, moving towards you without another word to Dugan.

“Don’t mind the savages,” He tells you and is rewarded with another small smile. “They don’t have any manners.”

He feels a thousand feet tall as you let him lead you towards one of the tables crammed along the wall. Every man in the place is not so subtly watching the two of you, and Dugan’s talking to some of the boys and Bucky knows that in ten minutes, everyone in the damn unit is going to know that he’s here, with you, his _soulmate_.

Well, his _other_ soulmate.

He brushes aside the pang that produces, sets the glasses on the table, pours you each a drink.

“I’m pretty used to it.” You say, and elaborate. “My father was in the army. Grew up around mooks like this. If it wasn’t for my Ma, I don’t think I’d be fit for company.” You take a sip of the sauce, testing it, and then you toss it back as he stares.

They might have good hooch for some of the high ranking fellas, but you just downed the rough stuff like you did it everyday.

Dugan claps from the bar and that makes you flush as you both realize the whole bar watched you do that.

“You want to get out of here?” Bucky asks, heart leaping as you nod.

Bucky Barnes has two soulmates, and he’s so in love with you already as you watch the stars over the town turn to sunlight, talking about everything, anything, nothing at all from the low wall overlooking the town square.

He learns that you don’t take shit from anyone, that you work for the SSR, that you love it, even if the way the men treat you grinds your gears from time to time. He learns that you volunteered to come over, that you take your oaths seriously, and that you hate rhubarb pie.

He learns that he really likes your laugh when you tell him about growing up with Steve, and the way you lean against him - your warmth sinks right in - as you both talk about Brooklyn and realize you’d lived within a couple blocks of each other for at least a couple years.

“Funny isn’t it?” You ask in one of the quiet moments. “That we had to come all the way across an ocean to find someone from the same place?”

“Yeah,” He says. “It sure is, doll.”

And then you’re both lingering, hands linked, because in no time at all the sun will be up and you both have jobs to do and while the army certainly isn’t going to try and keep soulmates apart - as if they could, Bucky thinks - this is still too new, too fresh, and he’s never had a soulmate like this and he wants to keep it, just keep it with himself and you for just a little bit longer.

Maybe Bucky Barnes isn’t so unlucky after all.

Bucky Barnes is lucky for the better part of a month.

A month where he gets to woo you, kiss you, be with you. And he knows, every time your eyes land on him that this bond goes both ways.

And then the orders come from the SSR and you’re being called to a different part of the fight and he realizes how absolutely unlucky it is to find your soulmate in the middle of war. 

He loses track of the nights he can’t sleep because he’s worried about you.

Your letters tell him he’s not alone - that you worry too - and it’s a jagged ache inside you both because you both have a job to do and neither one of those jobs is particularly safe, but you’re both still lucky because you understand each other and the world you live in.

And then the 107th is captured, and it’s like the universe is making up for all the luck it sent his way.


	2. What's Lost Can Be Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Hi all! I changed tenses because writing in past tense is infinitely less trippy 🤪

Colonel Phillips looked at you and you realized you’ve been tapping your foot for the last five minutes.

Your work with the SSR was stellar, you thought, so what if you tapped your foot while you waited for the news? Your stomach rolled, and you forced yourself to slowly exhale.

“Colonel Phillips,” You heard over your shoulder and ignored it in favor of continuing to stare at the files on the Colonel’s desk.

“Well, if it isn’t the Star Spangled Man With A Plan,” Phillips said and you snort at that because, yeah, the Dancing Monkey bit isn’t really your idea of a good use of army resources when there are men who are starving, unsupplied, and the medical tents are rationing painkillers. “And what is your plan today?”

The exasperation in the Colonel’s voice has you looking over and you see the actor from Senator Brandt’s morale campaign standing next to a familiar face - Peggy Carter, one of your fellow SSR agents.

She shot you a quick smile of hello, but her focus was on the exchange happening between the Colonel and the actor.

He’s pretty enough, you decide as you watch him square up to the desk. Broad shoulders, strong frame. Jaw that manages to look ruggedly masculine and boyish at the same time. Blonde hair, cut and styled, but not too styled and eyes that are the kind of blue the poets write about.

You’ll give it Brandt; he knows how to cast a role.

“I need the casualty list from Azzano.”

You weren’t the only one taken aback by the tone, which sounds more like a command than a request.

“You don’t get to give me orders, son.”

“I just need one name. James Barnes, from the 107th.”

Your heart stopped. Phillips’ eyes flicked to you, and you saw Peggy follow the motion before her eyes jumped back to the actor, who is staring at Phillips with a kind of single-minded focus you were not expecting to see in someone who dances to the tune of Senator Brandt.

Phillips pointed his pen at Peggy, and it was abundantly clear he was not happy with her. “You and I are going to have a conversation later that you won’t enjoy.”

“Please tell me if he’s alive, sir. B - A - R-”

“I can spell.” Phillips paused and you fought a vicious internal battle with the urge to grab him by the lapels and shake an answer out of his mouth as he rose and began to flip through the file you’ve been staring at for the last hour. “I have signed more of these condolence letters than I would care to count. But, the name does sound familiar. I’m sorry.” The last two words are directed almost as much at you as they are Captain America.

The world goes out of focus and while you’re aware that the conversation has continued, you are stuck.

That bastard.

He knew, and made you wait.

That absolute rat bastard.

He knew your soulmate - funny, charming James “Bucky” Barnes from Brooklyn with his playful smile and terrible sense of humor - was gone. And he’d made you wait.

Peg’s hands were there suddenly, holding you upright with concern.

“Y/n? What is it?”

“He’s gone.” You whispered, and even though you were saying the words, you couldn’t believe them. “Peg...He’s gone.”

And then you did something you’d never done before in your entire life.

You fainted.

It was night when you woke up, laid out on the cot in your tent, and Peggy Carter was waiting for you with a cup of water and a sympathetic smile that was strained around the edges.

“You look like I feel.” You said as you pushed yourself upright.

“How are you feeling, y/n?”

You waited a moment, examining your steady pulse with detached interest. “Numb, I think. Sorry for passing out on ya, English.”

Those ruby red lips - how did she always manage to keep those edges so sharp? - curved upwards at the nickname from training. “It’s alright. You’re just lucky Rogers was there to catch you.”

“Saved by a man.” Your nose wrinkled. “God, Colonel Phillips isn’t going to let me live that down, is he?

“I think you get a pass, considering the circumstances.” She held your gaze as she asked the question. “He was your soulmate, wasn’t he? Barnes?”

You saw the understanding in them. It broke the dam holding your emotions and you were sobbing into her shoulder as she held you. You cried until your voice was hoarse and there wasn’t anything left to cry out.

“How long?” She asked, when you were finally done.

“Not long enough. A month. We met in France.” You wiped futilely at your eyes, your face. God, you must look a wreck. But who cared? James was the only person you wanted to look at you anyway and he was gone now. “He was...it was…”

“I know,” She said, and her hand found yours. “I know, y/n.”

And you remembered that she had lost her soulmate, years ago, before the war in a traffic accident.

“How did you...how do you keep going?” You asked, hating how small your voice was.

She sighed. “Oh, y/n...I didn’t for a while. Thomas…” Her voice hitched. “Thomas was a good man, and I will miss him til the day I finally get to see him on the other side. I have to believe that.” Her hand tightened on yours for a moment. “But he would have wanted me to live. Really live. And do things of value, and find a way to make every day mean something.”

“I can’t believe Phillips knew and didn’t say anything.”

“Steve was pretty upset too. Captain America,” She clarified for you. “He and Barnes grew up together.”

“Steve...Rogers…” You moaned miserably as you put the pieces together. “Oh my god. Bucky told me about him.” You frowned. “But...Bucky always described him as being small and kind of scrawny…” 

The man in the red, white, and blue tights had definitely not fit any version of those words.

“Dr. Erskine’s formula.” Peg passed you a handkerchief “I was assigned to oversee the SSR’s interests on the project. Rogers was selected by Erskine himself, but after he was assassinated, Brandt shuffled him off to playacting. A terrible waste of a good man.” She told you the highlights of her assignment at Camp Lehigh and you laughed when she told you about Steve taking down the flag and jumping on the dud grenade. 

“Bucky would’ve killed him if he’d seen that.” And that set off another round of crying. When it finished, you forced yourself to ask, “Is Steve...how’d he take it?”

Peg’s eyes glinted and your suspicions were roused. “What do you know, English?”

“Let’s just say that Steve Rogers does not take orders well.” She patted your thigh affectionately “The less you know, the better for now, I think.”

“I should...I should say something to him. Thank him for catching me at least.”

“You can do that when he gets back.”

“Back?” Your eyes narrowed. “Peg, where exactly did you send him?”

She shrugged with her little coy smile that your SSR instructors had come to fear. “I hear Austria is just  _ lovely _ this time of year.”

  
  


Bucky Barnes couldn’t remember how long he’d been here, wasn’t even entirely sure where here was anymore.

The entirety of his world had shrunk down to the divide between times when Hydra was hurting him and the times where they weren't.

He wasn't sure what they were pumping into his system, or why they were so excited by whatever it was they found in the blood they took from him.

So when Steve’s face popped up in front of him, he assumed that the experiments were finally about to finish him off with some lovely visual and auditory imaginings. It would’ve been good to see your face too, one more time, he thought as Steve loomed over him, calling his name. He wasn’t sure he could remember your eyes just right though...

It was nice to see Steve again, even if it was a drug-induced hallucination. Something was different though...Couldn’t quite figure out what exactly, but definitely something...

“It’s me. It’s Steve.”

Bucky blinked as the restraints were torn away. “Steve?”

“Come on.” Steve helped him up and the world took a little bit of a spin that had him bracing against Steve. His fingers scrabbled at the material. Real. It felt real.

“Steve.” Bucky felt his heart begin to race as he realized maybe he wasn’t hallucinating after all. His body hurt too much to be hallucinating this, right? He’d definitely be able to stand up if his brain was just creating this whole situation, right?

“I thought you were dead.” Steve said, and Bucky finally realized what was different.

“I thought you were smaller.”

“Come on.” Steve was half-carrying him now and it finally sank in - this was real; Steve Rogers was here, in Europe, and he was breaking Bucky out of this hellhole.

“What happened to you?”

“I joined the Army.”

“Did it hurt?” Bucky managed to take back his own weight, half-staggering now as his limbs started to work again.

“A little.” They made it into the hallway, started to run. 

“Is it permanent?” Bucky hoped Steve knew where they were going because he sure didn’t, and now that he was upright and moving, he really liked the idea of living. Really liked the idea of not leaving without getting to hold you again. 

“So far.” Steve’s tone was untroubled and Bucky had to fight the urge to rip into him.

_ Of course _ he’d signed up for some kind of experiment to fight the war. Bucky shouldn’t have been surprised. It was just...such a  _ Steve Rogers _ thing to do.

“Captain America! How exciting! I’m a great fan of your films.” Bucky’s skin wanted to crawl away at those nasally tones - a voice that he only heard when the doctors were really about to crank up the torture and he has to clutch at the railing as Steve moves out onto the catwalk to confront the Nazi prick who runs this base. “So Dr. Erskine managed it after all.Not exactly an improvement, but still impressive.”

Steve punched Schmidt hard in the face and even from where he stood, Bucky could see that something is wrong with Schmidt’s face, like it’s pulling away from his skull.

“You’ve got no idea.”

“Haven’t I?” Smug, Schmidt struck back at Steve and Bucky almost shouted for Steve to get his ass out of there, but Steve took the hit to the shield instead of the face, then a kick.

Steve kicked back, throwing Schmidt backwards, and then with a lurching kind of rumble, the catwalk split, moving the two men away from each other as Schmidt shouted, “No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see I was his greatest success!”

Bucky could only watch in horror as Schmidt peels away his skin to reveal a bright, red skull as Steve steps back next to him. “You don’t have one of those, do you?”


	3. Alive Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky being alive isn't the only surprise you face

“What the hell’s going on out there?” Phillips grumbled, cutting his own dressing down short and striding to follow the men running towards the camp entrance.

You shot Peggy a look and found the tiniest smirk at the corner of her mouth as the shouts grew. “Faith, huh?” You asked the other agent.

She gave the tiniest most gallic shrug as you fell into step, following the growing crowd.

And there was Steve Rogers at the head of a column of men who looked like they’d walked...well, a helluva long way.

Peggy gave you a grin now and you nodded, properly chastened. “Okay, okay, faith. I get it.”

And then you saw him, standing right next to Steve and you weren’t even aware your feet were moving, but they were and then you were running through the gathering crowd.

Bucky saw you two seconds before you tackled him and his arms closed around you even as the impact of your body made him stagger.

He was filthy, dirty. Smelled like the inside of a boot. Covered in dirt and muck you didn’t want to think about.

He was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen and you didn’t even have to think about it before your lips came crashing down on his, wolf whistles and catcalls be damned because he was kissing you back and he was alive and real and here…

“Some of these men need medical attention.” Steve was saying to Colonel Phillips as you broke apart. “I’d like to surrender myself for disciplinary action.” His face was serious and you realized he meant every word as Bucky’s shoulders tightened under your hands.

“That won’t be necessary.” Phillips said, and spotted Peg. “Faith, huh?”

You laughed as Phillips stomped off, burying your head against Bucky’s neck as his arm tightened around you.

“You’re late.” Peggy told Steve.

He fished out a broken-to-hell radio device. “Couldn’t call my ride.”

You saw Peggy’s ‘Agent Carter’ facade crack for a moment as she  _ smiled. _

“Hey,” Bucky shouted. “Let’s hear it for Captain America!”

“See? I told you. They’re all idiots.” Bucky was saying to Steve when you walked into the tavern that night.

It was loud and boisterous and perfect because it’s exactly how you felt as you drank in the sight of your soulmate in his uniform after a shower and shave and, judging by the tint to his cheeks, a couple of drinks.

**“** How about you? You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” Steve asked with a clap on his back.

Oh.

You’d known Colonel Phillips would capitalize on this moment. You’d even known, deep down, that Bucky would go where Steve did. Best friends. Inseparable. 

You just hadn’t been ready for it to happen so fast.

You thought you’d have a little more time.

“Hell, no.” Bucky said, laughing. “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him. But you’re keeping the outfit, right?” He teased, even as his eyes slid past Steve and landed on you.

**“** You know what? It’s kind of growing on me.” You heard Steve say as you crossed the room.

“Stevie,” Bucky made space for you at his side and regulations be damned, you slid next to him like a puzzle piece to its mate. “There’s someone I think you need to meet. Y/n, this is Steve. Steve, this is y/n, my…”

“Soulmate.” Steve said, eyes moving over you in a friendly way. “We met.”

You flushed. “Well it’s nice to meet you when I’m conscious.”

Bucky tensed. “What?”

“Oh, Steve saved y/n from a very nasty fall,” Peggy chimed in, looking every inch the proper english rose in a red dress. “Very save-the-damsel-in-distress.”

“Doll…”

You rolled your eyes. “I’d just found out you were dead. Excuse me for not taking it well.”

Peggy laughed at that. “Even in training,” She told Bucky conspiratorially. “I never saw y/n  _ faint _ . Turn green? Yes. Pass out? Never.”

“I hate you, English. Phillips said you were dead.” You told Bucky. “I…”

“Fainted.” Peggy laughed as you shot her a rude hand gesture that ladies weren’t supposed to use in public. 

“That.” You shot Steve an appreciative glance. “My head and I both thank you for saving us from a likely concussion.”

“Yeah,” Bucky pressed a kiss to your temple. “Thanks, Stevie. Looking after my girl when I’m not around before you even knew it.” There’s a strange kind of tension in him as he leaned back and you felt your stomach tighten as you realize there is still so much you don’t know about your soulmate. “Dance, Doll?”

You brushed aside your case of sudden nerves and let your Sergeant pull you out onto the dance floor.

The evening passed in a blur of drinks, dancing, laughter. Bucky was a bit of a dancer, you learned, and he took every opportunity to hold you close or swing you around til you were dizzy and breathless.

“Mind if I cut in?” Steve asked.

“Trying to steal my girl?” Bucky asked.

“Never.” Steve said solemnly. “But someone has to tell her all the true stories about you.”

Bucky laughed but stepped back. “I’ll get some more drinks.”

You couldn’t help the smile on your face as you watched Dugan and the other newly chrisitianed Howlies pull him into a round of shots.

“He’s doll dizzy over you.” Steve said, swaying awkwardly to the music while you smiled. Bucky hadn’t been lying when he’d told you Steve was a terrible dancer. “Never seen Buck get this way over a woman before.”

“Well,” You said, fully intending to sassily snap back as you raised your head and met his gaze for the first time.

It was like getting punched in the gut.

It was like a whole show of fireworks went off, leaving an empty ringing in your ears that didn’t quite manage to drown out your thudding heartbeat as that super soldier hand closed over your own, tightened, almost painfully.

An artillery round could have gone off.

You both stood there, completely still, music forgotten.

“Wha-”

“No.” You stepped back, breaking the connection of your gaze and bodies before he could finish the question. “No, you can’t...we can’t...I’m Bucky’s,” You whispered, blood draining from your face.

Steve swallowed, took a step closer to you. “Don’t...we can’t make a scene.” His hands were gentle now as he pulled you back, swaying again. “Is this…How is this possible?” He asked against your hair.

You shuddered against him. “I don’t know. But Steve, I’m...I love Bucky.”

“I know, y/n. I can see it.” He took a big breath. “I think the two of you could light up the whole of Manhattan when you look at each other.”

“You’re his best friend.” You said, feeling misery seeping into you, stealing the warmth and wonder of the evening. “What the hell do we do?”

“You’re with Buck.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want this, y/n.” Steve’s confession brushed against your ear and you couldn’t quite still the shiver that raced through you. “He’s the best guy I know. He deserves...He deserves everything.”

You nodded. “I don’t want this, either.”

“So we don’t tell him.” The way he said it, a decision made, had you raising your head, catching that blue gaze. It was steely now in certainty. “We say nothing. We finish this song, and then...we pretend this never happened.”

You nodded again.

Your traitorous body - or would it be more accurate to say your traitorous soul? - couldn’t quite ignore the heat of the body you were pressed against, and you knew you weren’t alone in your effort to remain unaffected when Steve let out a soft groan and lifted his head away from your hair.

The song hadn’t ended fast enough, the two of you practically springing apart the minute the dying notes played.

_ Subtle _ , you chided yourself as you made your way to the bar where Dugan had trapped Bucky with some kind of story involving a goat, a block of explosives and a bearded lady,  _ really great spycraft, y/n _ .

And if your gaze happened to occasionally wander across the bar to scan over the Howling Commandos and the man who would lead them into the breach...well, that was only natural. And if you happened to feel hot, electric eyes burning into your back when you turned and leaned into Bucky, or pressed a kiss against that clean-shaven jaw, it was easy enough to remind yourself that you had everything you needed in the man at your side, and he wasn’t a super soldier.

It was Peggy who found the two of you out.


	4. A Tangled Web

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy knows.
> 
> Or, the one where the secrets come out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Y'all, this story has me by the throat right now, so...sorry?

It was Peggy who found the two of you out, but not in a way you could have predicted.

“I know.” She said to you in a closet she’d pulled you into in one of Stark’s European labs a few weeks later.

The Howlies were out on a mission, and the SSR had you both assigned to Stark. Trying to rein in the eccentric - and at times megalomaniacal - inventor was a job worthy of two agents’ full time attention.

The man was a genius, but the next time he tried to run off, you were putting a goddamn leash on him.

“What do you know?” You asked, and saw her frown at you as you reached for the door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Peg. I’m good; I’m not that good. What do you know?”

“I know about you and Steve.”

The air vanished from the room even as your head shook in denial. “There is no me and Steve.”

“Y/n…” The look she gave you was one you might give a difficult child.

“He’s...He’s Bucky’s best friend, Peggy.” Your hands were clammy, and the file closet suddenly seemed entirely too small, too warm.

“I know it’s more than that, y/n.”

“Does...Does anyone else know?” You swallowed, hard as your mind raced. “That you know? That I’m a...freak…”

“Steve knows. He’s how I found out.”

“He told you?” Disbelief colored the world as you stared at her.

Her eyes heated in memory, cooled just as quickly. “In a manner of speaking.”

“That’s not good enough, Peggy.”

“We’ve been...well, the word I want to use is fonduing.” She laughed, a little mirthless sound as she found a box to perch on. “I suppose the more appropriate phrase is ‘having an affair’.”

“And he told you over pillow talk?” 

“He said your name the other night. When we were... _ fonduing _ …” 

Your face flushed a bright, beet red. “Oh god. Oh god.”

“Quite.” Peggy met your eyes and you could tell that she really was amused by the whole thing, not offended. “This thing, between Steve and I...it’s not like that. Not like that at all. We respect each other, admire each other. And both of us have hearts that lie somewhere else. It’s companionship, y/n.”

“I don’t want Steve.”

“I know. You’re very much in love with your Bucky. And he’s very much in love with you.” She sighed. “I’m not telling you this to create problems between the three of you, y/n. But eventually...eventually the truth will come out, because they’re always in the field together, in and out of each other’s pockets, and you aren’t going to be able to run from this.”

You knew she was right. You didn’t want her to be, but you knew she was.

“What do I do?” You asked helplessly, sinking down next to her and letting your head drop in your hands. “Peggy, what do I do?”

“You and Steve should tell Bucky. When they come back from this mission, the three of you need to have this conversation. Not because you don’t want Steve, but because Bucky deserves to hear it from you both, and not finding out by accident or fluke or anything. Trust me, y/n, you don’t want to know what it’s like to put distrust in your soulmate’s eyes.” Her eyes grew hard. “That’s not something that’s easily undone.”

“Will you tell Phillips? Stark?” You knew they’d want to study you - like a sideshow attraction. A mutation. The woman with two soulmates! 

“No.” At your shocked look she shrugged. “Quite frankly, it’s no one’s damn business but your own, y/n. And soulmate of Captain America? That’s not a thing I’d want splashing about in the world, and Steve doesn’t either, so he won’t be saying anything either.”

“He’s a terrible liar.” 

Peggy laughed at that. “Only most of the time, y/n. He’s a terrible liar, but he keeps his own secrets.”

You were waiting for them when they rolled in two days later, teeth worrying at your lip as you visually checked off that everyone had made it home, was whole. You exchanged half-hearted barbs with Dugan, nodded and smiled like nothing was wrong at all.

“Heya, Doll.” Bucky’s arms - arms that already felt like the only home you ever wanted to know - came around you as he squeezed you close. “Didja miss me?”

“Yes.” You wished your voice didn’t sound so flat. “We, ah…” You paused as Steve drew even with the two of you. “The three of us need to talk.”

Bucky looked between you and Steve, drew away from you physically and you wanted to cry as you saw him realize there was no surprise or confusion on Steve’s face, just resignation. “What...what’s going on?”

“Not here.” Steve said, his face deceptively calm. “This is...this should be private, Buck.”

Anger flashed, that famous Brooklyn temper as Bucky gritted his teeth. “What it is? What’s big enough that you two have to talk to me but not here?”

“Bucky, please…” You grabbed his arm. “Please, baby.”

He let out one breath, slow, then another. “Where?” His tone was flat, hard, and you knew he was fighting his own instincts, pulling everything he was feeling inside.

You hated that - you loved your Bucky, who always showed what he was feeling. Who’s face and hands and lips were so expressive that you never had to wonder what he felt or thought...

“My room.” Steve said, and you felt a little guilty for the relief you had at not having to have this conversation in your room, where Bucky stayed with you between missions. “It’s private. No one will interrupt us. And Peg sweeps it for bugs regularly.”

It was the most excruciating ten minute walk of your life to date. Steve lead the way while Bucky refused to look at you, refused to take your hand in his own.

He lasted exactly five seconds after Steve closed the door. “Someone better tell me what the fuck is going on here.”

“Y/n is my soulmate.” Steve ripped the bandaid off in a brutal sentence.

You flinched. Bucky gaped at his best friend, then turned to you. “You knew?”

Miserable, you nodded. 

“How long?” When neither of you answered he asked again. “How fucking long?”

“Since the night,” You had to push the words past the lump in your throat. “The night after you got back from...from Austria.”

“You can’t…” Bucky spun, placing himself between you and Steve. “You can’t be serious. This is,” His breaths were coming shorter, quicker and you moved to his side to support him. “This isn’t...this isn’t...happening…”

“Breathe, Buck.” Steve was on the other side of him, taking Bucky’s weight as his legs went out from under him. “Just breathe.”

Bucky started to laugh, the kind of laugh when you’d heard when soldiers reached their limits, and ran his hands through his hair. “This is some kind of fucked up joke,” He muttered to the ceiling. “Some kind of fucked up, karmic wheel bullshit.”

Steve understood better than you did apparently. “Buck…”

“You can’t have her.” Bucky told him. “I’m not as noble as you, Rogers.”

“She doesn’t want me.”

Understanding was an ugly bloom across Bucky’s face as he turned to look at you and you couldn’t meet his eyes. “Doll?”

Your face was wet - when had you started crying? - as you managed to speak. “Remember how you always say I’m a little left of center? Guess...guess that’s true in more ways than one.”

Bucky was staring at you like he’d never seen you before.

“I don’t want Steve,” You said, because if you had to live the rest of your life with him looking at you like that...you didn’t think you could take it. “I don’t want him, and he doesn’t want me - Peggy said his heart’s somewhere else -” You saw Steve flinch, like an exposed nerve had been hit. “And we haven’t done anything and we  _ aren’t _ going to do anything.”

“Why’d you tell me?” Bucky asked, voice small. “Why tell me at all then if it doesn’t fucking matter?”

“Because, James Buchannon Barnes,” You took his hand in yours, bolstered when he didn’t try to slide it away. “You are the love of my life and I can’t stand the thought of you finding out from anyone else. And eventually, you would have.” You shot him a watery grin. “You’re not the only one with a karmically fucked wheel.”

His laugh was weak, but it was there as he pulled you in close for a hug.

You didn’t know how long the two of you sat there, on the floor of Steve’s room, arms wrapped around each other, but when you lifted your gaze, you saw Steve sitting on the other side of Bucky, looking as lost and devastated as you had.

“We have to find a way to fix this.” You said, finally drawing back from Bucky. “You two...you’re practically family. This can’t...this can’t come between that. And Peggy promised not to tell Stark or the Colonel about my...abnormality…”

“We’re not done telling secrets.” Steve’s voice cut across yours. “You’re not the only abnormality in this room, y/n.”

Bucky’s head shot up. “Don’t.” He warned, and now it was your turn to look between the two of them in confusion.

“She deserves to know.”

“I’ll kick your ass, punk.”

“Sitting right here, boys.” You pointed out.

Steve and Bucky exchanged one of their looks that communicated a helluva a lot of information between the two of them - Stark had openly wondered if they weren’t telepathic - and Steve raised a single eyebrow.

Bucky sighed. “I...I met my first soulmate when I was a kid.” 

You blinked.

Your mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Which was good, because your soulmate wasn’t done talking. 

“I was at school, and I heard the sounds of someone taking a beating in the yard as I came out the doors and I threw myself into the fight without really thinking about it, ‘cuz these two older boys were kicking the shit out of this scrawny fucker who just...kept getting back up.” There his hands went again, running through his hair. “And after we got our asses kicked, I pulled him up to his feet and that’s when it -” He let out a short explosive breath.

Yeah. That was what it felt like the first time you looked dead-on into the eyes of your soulmate.

But you’d heard this story before. Or a version of it anyway.

Your eyes slid to Steve, who was staring a little-too-fixedly at the concrete floor. “Steve?” 

Bucky nodded. “I didn’t...I didn’t say anything. I was too afraid...And I knew it wasn’t the same for him.”

You knew why. You’d grown up traveling the world, meeting different people. You had a more open mind than most. Even as progressive as most would consider the brash city of New York, you couldn’t imagine what it would be like for a young boy to find out his soulmate was a man in Brooklyn in the twenties and thirties, let alone to have his soulmate repudiate you.

“He didn’t tell me.” Steve took over now. “I kept...I kept waiting for him to say something, say anything. Right up until the day he shipped out.”

The surprise on Bucky’s face had you taking his hand again. “You knew?” He whispered.

Oh, Buck.

America’s golden boy nodded. “I just…” He exhaled. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t trap you with me, y’know? I had to give you an out. I was super sickly then,” The explanation shifted to you, as if it was easier for Steve to look at your face than Bucky’s as he tried to make sense of it. “Docs kept saying it was a miracle I lived as long as I did, between the asthma and all that.” That head drops again. “I...I thought it’d be better if you never knew.”

Peggy’s words are making a lot more sense now. You’re going to kick her fucking english ass tomorrow, you promise yourself.

You’re pretty sure Bucky’s brain isn’t really working based on the way he’s staring at Steve.

“So,” You roll the word out. “Let me make sure we’re all on the same page here. You two have been soulmates this whole time, but Bucky thought it was one sided because Steve...lied...Also, I have to say, Rogers, I did not know you had that in you…” 

Steve gives you a half-assed grin at that.

“And I’m soulmates with both of you, and have been agonizing over it for the last few months while Steve buried himself in missions and Peggy and  _ fonduing, _ ” You waggle your eyebrows at Steve and watch him turn as red as the stripes on his outfit while Bucky just gaped at you.

“Fonduing?” He mouthed.

“I thought it meant something else.” Steve’s shoulders were set defensively, as if he wished he could curl into a ball and just disappear. “Which, you know, obviously…”

And it’s enough.

It’s enough to tip the scales and suddenly the three of you are laughing, full-belly, ‘can’t hold it in’ laughter. Bucky’s holding his sides and you giggled and even Steve - normally so stoic and reserved - has a grin so wide you notice the size of his dimples.

When the laughter died finally, Bucky pulled you back against him, and you went, unresisting as he wrapped an arm around you.

“We’ll figure it out.” He said, and it had the weight of a promise as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head, shooting Steve a glance as he took Steve's hand in his own. “We’ll figure it out together.”


	5. Gaping Maw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half of your heart.
> 
> Grief and Smut here, readers. Grief and smut.

You were in the middle of a batch of dispatches when you felt it, and you knew something had gone terribly wrong. Gut-wrenching wrong.

You managed to make it to the women’s facilities, locking the door behind you as your hands found the edge of the sink and you tried to name the feelings rushing through you in an attempt to gain some control over what was happening to you.

Feelings that aren’t yours.

Fear.

Terrible, awful fear. Panic.

Regret. Oh god, it cuts at your throat like a knife so sharply when you glanced up in the mirror you thought there’d be blood spilling down the front of you.

But no, it’s just your own face that stared back at you, bloodless in color, but otherwise normal.

And then it’s grief, overpowering, overwhelming. It drove you to the floor with a single, choked sob.

“Y/n?” You heard Peggy’s voice, and the lock on the door jiggled. “Y/n? Are you alright?”

No. No, you weren’t alright. You weren’t going to be alright ever again.

And then Peggy was there, holding you as the grief just washed over you like a riptide or a storm surge, sucking you down til you thought you’d never breathe air again only to recede enough for you to realize Peggy had jammed the trash bin under the door knob. Only to realize the gaping maw that had opened up under your collarbone wasn’t fading, wasn’t going away.

And that was when you knew.

You were waiting when the Howling Commandos made it back to London, one man less than when they’d left. Each of them gave you a touch, a platitude, as they disembarked the plane. They treated you like a widow, even though you’d never been married. Never had the chance to.

You weren’t sure how you’d managed to stay upright, but you waited for Steve and you see the mirror of your own loss on his face and you didn’t have the energy to care what anyone might see as you wrap your arms around him and bury your face in his chest.

Half of your soul is missing. Half of his too.

Phillips tried to keep you out of the briefing room, but between Carter and the Captain, he really didn’t get a say. Steve wouldn’t look at you as he gives his report.

You had to hear it. Better to hear it like this - factual - than to imagine and wonder.

You probably crushed something in Peggy’s hand, but she didn’t say anything as you sat, dry-eyed, through the whole recounting of the mission.

There wasn’t even a body for you to bury.

This time, Bucky Barnes is really gone.

When you fell into bed that night, exhausted and hollow, you prayed that you’d wake up from this nightmare, but you knew, even as sleep pulled your eyelids down, that you weren’t going to be that lucky.

The next night, Steve showed up at your room with two bottles of the cheapest rotgut an American could buy in London and you let him in.

"I just...I'm so sorry, y/n. He was right there. A couple more inches..."

"You did everything you could." You knew that that was true, tried to let that ring in your words. "Steve, you did everything you could, and I know it."

"How do we..." He shook his head, at a loss for the words. "I've never...never been in a world where Bucky wasn't there."

"I don't remember what it was like before him either." You confess and open the rotgut. You were pretty sure the fumes alone might do you in. "But will you tell me about him, from before? In Brooklyn?"

Several hours passed. The two of you are sprawled across your bed, which is not appropriately sized for a super soldier body, so your head lay on Steve's thigh as he told you about how his heart had damn near leapt out of his throat the first time he'd seen Bucky in uniform.

"I think the word the Brits use is 'dashing'," You commented with a grin. "Also, I think I'm drunk. It's nice."

"Dr. Erskine said that… the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles, it would affect my cells. Create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Which means um…I can’t get drunk." Steve confessed. "We've been drinking this stuff all night, and I can only get a headache for about two minutes if I drink it real fast."

"Then I'll have to sober up, dry out." You decided, and he shook his head. "Shh shhh...I've mind my made up. I mean...I've made up my mind."

"What was...what was he like with you?" 

Steve's question was painfully quiet even in the relative silence of your room as you took your time answering.

"He was...boyish. Playful. I've always been serious - focused. He made it...He made me wonder what it would be like to have some of those dreams I put aside when I joined the SSR." Your eyes started to water. "Nothing we really talked about, but just...What it'd be like to settle down, have a house. A whole horde of rugrats with his eyes and my smarts."

Steve chuckled. "He'd crack jokes about how lucky they would be to look like you."

"Yeah. He would. He'd be - he'd have been a great father..." You cleared your throat. "I'm not...I'm not the kinda gal men go out of their way to woo. But Buck..." You swallowed the lump in your throat. "Bucky made me feel treasured. Cherished." You had to blink rapidly before you started crying again.

"He was my gravity. It feels...it feels like the earth is just spinning so damn fast now and I'm about to fly off it without him."

You nodded, in perfect understanding as you looked up at tear-bright blue eyes. "Yes."

Time seemed to slow, stretching, electric between you as you just looked at each other. Really looked.

"You have pretty eyelashes." You said, reaching a hand up.

Steve caught it, gently, just before your fingers would have brushed his jaw. "Y/n..."

You know what his tone meant. Know that it's half-plea, half-warning.

"I don't..." You pushed yourself upright. "I don't want to be alone, tonight, Steve. Please don't make me be alone with this hole in my heart tonight."

"You're...you're drunk. And you're grieving." He said as he moved to stand.

"I am both of those things." You agreed. "And I'm not the only one who's grieving."

"I don't..." His chest heaved as he gazed down at you. "You're y/n, and you're Bucky's girl."

"Who," You asked, biting your lip as you stood, pressed the line of your body against his. "Are you trying to convince, Steve?" You felt his body shake, just once. "We can't replace him." You laid one hand just over his heart. "We just can't. That's not what I'm trying to do. But-"

Whatever else you were going to say is swept away as Steve Rogers lowers his head and takes possession of your mouth with the intensity of an exploding star, and then you're kissing him back and both of your hands are moving, holding, grabbing as he backs you up to the bed until your legs buckle and then he's over you - warm and solid and real and here and touching you.

It's nothing like being with Bucky.

This was needy and greedy and a desperate collision between two people who - for a few hours - needed to forget _everything_. And it was exactly what you did.

One of Steve's hands slid your skirt up, gripping your bared thigh as his lips licked and sucked and devoured a path along your neck, your collarbone, while the other fumbled with buttons. Your own fingers were likewise preoccupied - one hand speared through that blonde hair, the other unfastening - trying to unfasten - that damn shirt while his hips pressed down against you and sweet jesus, that super serum really worked everywhere...

Impatient, hurried, frantic. Both of you stripped and helped the other strip shirts and pants and skirt and the essentials while _off, off, hurry, hurry_ chanted in your bloodstream like a prayer to some pagan god upon who's altar all momentary pains could be sacrificed.

There was a breathless moment as he slid his cock into you. Just one as he gazed down at you, and there was tenderness there and you couldn't stand it, so you moved your hips with a slow roll as you wrapped a leg around his hip, and felt his control snap.

Everything else vanished in a haze of skin-to-skin contact and hands and lips and teeth and quiet - then not so quiet - mutters of 'oh, god, right there' and 'don't stop' and 'fuck, so tight...' and finally 'almost...almost there...fuck...' and then it's like an artillery shell explodes behind your closed eyes as you shatter into a million pieces and hear him grunt a moment later as he follows you over the edge.

Afterwards, you both lay there, panting on your too-small bed. Neither of you says a word as you curl in to his side, your head pillowed on his chest as one arm wraps around your shoulder.

And that is how you fell asleep.


	6. Differences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a hole still, but the world keeps turning and the war still burns.
> 
> And there are more surprises in your future than you can imagine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey all, not gonna lie, this chapter...I hate it...ugh...I will probably come back and do it all over at some point.
> 
> From here, there are a couple ways the story could go, and I *CANT DECIDE* so I'mma plead for your patience while I write ALL OF THEM and then try to make myself choose which one to post (#writerthingsyeah? 😅)

That’s how it went - late nights and locked rooms where you try to help each other forget the chasm running right through the middle of you, forget the pitying glances your colleagues sent you hunched over your desk during the day, forget how much it hurts _all the time_.

You threw yourself into work at the London office and Steve threw himself into the herculean task of ridding the world of Hydra and in between missions the two of you collided in a storm of loss and grief and rough hands, rough lips, gasps and moans stolen in the quiet of your room, his room. Prying pleasure from wrecked bodies, wrecked souls as you grappled with Bucky's loss.

It helped with the hurt, but not enough.

You had no idea how Peggy Carter did this because the grief, the enormity of your loss, threatened to drag you under every day when your eyes opened and you stared at the ceiling and wondered if this is the last time you’ll have to go through the routine of getting dressed, of caring, before it finally takes you over and washes you away completely.

No one said anything when you continued to greet the Howling Commandos every time they came back. No one said anything about how close you and Steve had become, practically living in each others’ pockets the rare days the Howlies weren’t taking the fight to Hydra in the field.

Morita saw you sneak out of Steve’s room one early morning two months later, but he’d given you a respectful nod despite the state of your hair and dress and the hour.

Dugan’s gaze might’ve turned speculative at how long, how close, Steve hugged you after a particularly rough mission, but then the big bozo had strolled off, whistling, and you couldn't be sure you hadn't imagined it.

It would have only been natural for Bucky Barnes’ soulmate and best friend to try and find their way through grief together, wouldn’t it?

There was no reason for anyone to think it was more than that - more than two people bound by loss, sharing skin and stolen moments where the pain was - however minutely -  _ less _ .

And then Stark - Howard, now - found out.

“You’re bleeding.” Peggy is already moving before the words are done coming out of her mouth. “Y/n, did you cut yourself on something?”

You shook your head as she pressed a clean kerchief against your arm, where, indeed, the bright red and coppery spill was spreading through the sleeve of your shirt. “I didn’t...I don’t feel it…”

Those dark, sharp eyes are on you and you knew that Peggy Carter had  _ thoughts _ about this. But she shook her head and hustled you off to one of the empty labs, grabbing a medical kit along the way.

The bleeding had stopped by the time she had you stripped out of your shirt, and you couldn't do anything but stare at the newly pink, puckered skin as you wipe away the blood.

“That’s...that’s a bullet wound.” Peggy stared too. “That is...that is at least a month old.”

“It...It doesn’t hurt.” You pressed it, gently, braced for...something. Tenderness, a flash of pain. But there was no pain under your fingertips. “Peg, what the fucking hel-”

“Carter,” Stark strode in like he owned the place, which technically, he did. “The Howlies are radioing in, they need you to guide them to the nearest medical aide - Rogers and Morita took fire…” He blinked and you realized you were sitting there, partially undressed still. “Well. Didn’t realize it was like  _ that _ with you two. Hey, who’s bleeding?” Genuine concern in his voice as he noticed the bloody cloth. “We have doctors for this kind of thing, you know?”

Peggy looked at you, and you nodded.

“Y/n’s arm started to bleed not ten minutes ago.” Her tone was factual and you appreciated it because you’ve never seen Peggy Carter shaken before - but shaken she was. “By the time I got her in here, it looked like that.” She gestured to your arm, your new scar.

“Spontaneous scar tissue? That’s definitely a bullet wound.” Howard’s gaze and hands are clinical, drawn into the mystery. “You’re not joshing me, Carter, right?”

“I am not,” Peggy swore. “Joshing you.”

Howard looked up at you. “You’re telling me you didn’t have this scar when you got up this morning? It looks completely healed - old even.”

You shook your head. “It didn’t even hurt. Still doesn’t.”

Howard was already examining the front and back of your arm, muttering to himself. Before you could ask him what he was thinking, he slapped his forehead. “The amplification effect. Of course. But Erskine couldn’t have predicted…”

“In English, please.” You asked. “Some of us aren’t geniuses.”

“Erskine’s formula. It was...the theory was that everything that makes a person super is already encoded in their genetics. The serum just...amplifies...what already exists. We called it the amplification effect - makes a good man better, a bad man...well, Red Skull is a great example of the opposite.” Howard was staring at you like a particularly fascinating bug and you tugged your shirt back up. “We just...are you Rogers’ soulmate?”

“Uh…” You blinked stupidly. Yes, that was you - world class spy and agent for the SSR. 

“Holy...Shit…” He began to pace. “Do you realize what this means? Soulmates have a genetic component to them - coded into our very DNA. But if you’re...well, manifesting for lack of a better word...injuries from Rogers and experiencing his rapid healing...”

“Are you telling me Steve got shot?” You asked, just to be clear.

Howard nodded. “Yeah, it’s why they wanted Peg to liaise with ground support in...where they are. He’ll be fine - it’s Morita they’re worried about.” His eyes dragged back to your sleeve, as though glued or magnetized. “The amplification must be kicking the soulmate connection into the stratosphere, somehow changing what  _ your _ metabolism is capable of. This is...This is  _ fascinating _ .” A moment later his brows furrowed. “I wonder...it’s not a reciprocal reaction - Barnes was your soulmate - but there’s got to be - What?” He caught the wordless glance you exchanged with Peggy.

“Stark, you cannot tell  _ anyone _ about this.” His eyes were widening even as you said the words.

“Multiple soulmates.” He whistled through his teeth. “Just...goddamn. We knew the Ruskies were following up on multi-partner bonds but…but it's all just theoretical...”

Peggy’s hand found yours and you squeezed a little too tightly, letting go when she winced. “Shit, Peg. Sorry.”

“Are you exhibiting increased strength too?” Howard grabbed at your hand, fully in curious-scientist mode. “Here, squeeze my hand.”

You squeezed and he winced.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s definitely not normal.” He shook his hand, closed it, opened it, shook it again. “God, we’ve gotta get you in a lab. There are so many questions…”

“Don’t tell him.” The request slipped out before you had time to yank it back.

Howard and Peggy’s eyebrows almost vanished into their hairlines at your request. All of you knew who ‘him’ referred to. 

“If you tell him then he’ll insist on being here, instead of out there.” You knew that much about Steve - he would view it as part of his duty, his loyalty to you and Bucky, to watch out for you. “I’ll do whatever tests you want. Answer any questions I can. But you leave him out of this. He doesn’t need to know, and we need him in the field taking out Hydra.”

“We can...we can try to minimize your exposure. Give you a patient code name. No identifying information other than the tests.” Howard probably would have promised you his firstborn, eyes glistening with possibilities. “But once Hydra is finished...you absolutely have to let me test a few theories.”

Peggy punched him and he clutched his shoulder and whined. “You insensitive clod.”

“I’ll keep it a secret.” He promised you both. “For now.”

Steve was fine by the time you see him next, and thankfully, so was Morita.

Your scar had faded the hour before they touched down, as if it had never existed at all.

You could tell from the way Steve kept glancing at you on the walk back from the landing strip that he knew something was off.

“What happened?” He asked later that night when you let him into your room.

“Rough day at the office.” 

Those eyes - bluer than anything you’d ever seen before or since, and all too often hiding a mind as sharp as any intelligence officer’s - lingered over the planes of your face, measured it against the tone of your voice and you fought the urge to shift under that stare.

“We should...stop doing this.” He said, but he didn’t step back out into the hallway.

“We should.” You agreed.

“Tell me to go.” He stepped closer, kicked the door shut behind him. “Tell me to leave, y/n.”

Your hands were reaching up to his shoulders even as his slid around your waist. “I should. This...this isn’t good for either of us.”

“It could be.”

And there it was - the elephant in the room, the possibility you’d both been ignoring because it would mean you were beginning the inevitable path of moving on.

One of your soulmates was dead.

Bucky was dead.

But you and Steve? You were both alive.

“I don’t…” Your voice shook. “I will probably mess this up.”

“We’ll learn as we go.” And he lowered his head to yours, and this time, the kiss wasn’t consuming, wasn’t hurried. It was slow, and it was soft, and sweet as your hands found their way to his hair and held him close as you tasted him, really tasted him.

It was different that time.

There was hunger, but the tone had changed, and you knew, even as you explored and caressed and learned each other’s bodies with a different kind of desire, that there was no way back.

Reverence and softness. Slow and liquid need that pooled instead of crashed. A tide coming in instead of a storm as your hands mapped that jaw, as his fingers teased you. Inexorable, inescapable, as the first wave of pleasure did crash over you, your walls clamping down on his fingers as you came.

Your breath hitching as he licked your juices from those fingers, holding your gaze the entire time.

You couldn't have stopped now even if you wanted to, transfixed by the sight of him on the bed next to as he parted your legs, pulled you closer.

Your name was a prayer on his lips as he slid inside you, and his was a breathless sound from yours as he started to move, slow. Everything was slow and the opposite of frantic and you felt like a part of you was breaking, melting down in the furnace of this moment and being reforged.

You watched his eyes, his face, saw them go dizzy with pleasure. Saw the quick quirk of his lips when he shifted his hips and hit just the right spot inside of you. Felt the stutter of his breath against your skin as you clenched around him, still sensitive, so sensitive.

It was tender, and it left you both raw and vulnerable in your bed afterwards, one of his hands playing with the strands of your hair as you traced the line of his sternum with soft sweeping motions.

“I like the way you say my name.” He confessed, as if it was a sin.

You quirked an eyebrow at him, saw his blush spread like wildfire across his face.

“Not...I mean, yeah, when we’re here, too. But just...I like how it sounds when you say it.” His whole body was tensing under your hands and you realized Steve Rogers was  _ nervous _ . “And it’s always ‘Steve’ with you. You never...you never call me Captain, or Cap, or Captain America.”

“It’s your name.” You said, because it’s true. “Though I reserve the right to use your middle and last names if you piss me off.”

The tension leaked from him as he laughed, your hand bouncing a little as he does. “Fair enough.”

The two of you passed the rest of the night talking. A different - but no less intimate - kind of learning. 

He tells you about his mother, Sarah.

You tell him about joining the SSR.

He tells you about the five - FIVE - attempts he made to enlist, and laughs when you wrinkle your nose as he tells you where he said he from on the last attempt. 

“Jersey? Really?” Your disdain amused him as he pressed a kiss to your nose. "Jersey, Rogers...Jesus."

You tell him about your father getting sick and your mother walking out and your father dying.

He tells you about watching his Ma pass from tuberculosis. Moving in with Bucky. Stuffing newspaper in his shoes to fill the gaps and keep his feet warm because nothing ever actually fit him pre-serum, and even now, he has to consciously think about the sizes of anything he wears because he still isn’t quite used to this new body.

You learn that he doesn't like cats.

He's appalled that you hate apple pie and jokes that that's practically un-American.

You retaliate by tickling him and holy shit on a shingle, Steve is _ticklish_ and he almost launches you off the bed as he tries to squirm away from your fingers.

He wants to go back to Brooklyn when this is all over. Wants the peace of not having to fight anymore.

It was different.

It was good.

And for the first time, you realize you might be falling a little bit in love with this soulmate too.


	7. First Avenger, Last Soulmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle with Hydra
> 
> The Universe has never been kind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy oh boy oh boy...it'll be a bit before the next chapter my lovelies as it turns out that I am indecisive AF about where I want this to go regarding the reader's next chapter...
> 
> The plan is definitely to continue this work up to and through the events of CACW though, so hang on! Angst ahead!

Peggy knew, because Peggy always knew.

“Does he make you happy?” She finally asked one day while you both walked through London. The skies were unusually clear, and there was no sign of impending attack for the moment. The pair of you were stealing a moment - a moment of normalcy.

You smiled. “Yeah, Peg. It’s...different...but...it’s good.”

You meant it - it wasn’t the same as Bucky. Would never be the same. But neither you or Steve needed it to be. Steve was the one person you didn’t have to explain anything to about losing Bucky, and vice versa. It gave you a measure of peace.

“Then I’m happy for you two.” She said. “And don’t worry about Stark - I’ve got him too properly terrified to tell anyone.”

“You’re the scariest person I know, English.” You told her, and you could see she was pleased as she looped her arm through yours. “Goddamn scary, you hear?”

“I’m going to run the SSR one day, y/n.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” For a little while, your world was alright.

Steve found out about your scars - well, technically  _ his _ scars - as the Howling Commandos are trudging through Switzerland. You and Peggy were along on this one because the base you were heading towards was supposed to contain any number of artifacts that Johann Schmidt and Hydra had pillaged from other places, and the SSR had a vested interest in not only obtaining but documenting some of the artifacts which were rumored to possess otherworldly powers.

But because no plan survives contact with reality, when Steve took a knife to the shoulder from a surprise Hydra patrol, you did too.

Morita was the first to notice the darkening patch on your jacket as the Howlies eliminated the patrol. “Jesus, medic!”

“I’m fine.” You protested. “Really.”

“Give a lady some room.” Peggy ordered. “Go help your captain, Morita.”

You could tell Morita wanted to argue, but he did as ordered because Peggy Carter wasn’t the kind of woman one disobeyed.

The damage was done though - Morita and Rogers came running back moments later.

“I swear, I'm fine.” You promised Steve as he ripped his helmet off and dropped both hands to your face, checking for shock. “Steve,” You snapped, catching his eyes, wide in panic. “Steve, look at me. I’m fine.”

His wide eyes were full of disbelief, and you know it’s because the blood on your shoulder has seeped through the jacket shoulder completely now, dark and bitter and scenting the air with copper and iron. So you did the only thing you could do - unbutton the heavy coat, slipping your arm free and yanking the collar of your shirt down to expose flesh that is whole, if marked by a scar that is, in front of his very eyes, beginning to fade.

He stared at you in disbelief.

“You,” It took him two tries, licking his lips as if his mouth had dried out. “You...you aren’t surprised.” The look on his face as he realized you’d been keeping secrets was everything Peggy promised you it would be - you would have done anything to take that look out of his eyes, but he’s the Captain first in the field, and it's no place for you to give him the apology he needed. That he deserved. “Explain.”

Peggy dragged Morita off and you were so grateful.

“Stark thinks Erskine’s formula amplified the bond between us. Somehow, my body tries to mimic what happens to yours. It doesn’t hurt,” You rushed the words out. “It doesn’t hurt, and my body heals almost as fast as yours…”

  
“How long? How long have you known?” When you didn’t answer he swore. “You should have told me - I never would have allowed you into the field.”

“I’m an SSR agent. You don't allow me anywhere.” You reminded him, feeling your temper rising. “I’m not some helpless dame, Rogers.”

“You still should have told me.” His hand brushed over your shoulder before you can yank the shirt back up, and it’s gentle even as his tone is hard. You met his eyes, and there were sparks between the two of you - steel against steel - as he promised, “We’re going to talk about this later.”

The moment the door to his room closed behind you at base, you have the biggest, loudest, knock-down, drag-out fight you’d ever had.

He was hurt that you’d hid this from him.

Angry that you’d lied to him.

You let him get it all out. Stood there and took the brunt of it. He wasn’t wrong - you’d lied to him. Hidden it from him. You weren’t going to try and slide out from under it.

“What happens if I die out there, y/n? Would you die too?”

You don’t have any answers for him - or at least, not the answers he wants to hear. “People die in war, Steve. I’m no less committed to this fight than you.”

“Do you know,” He snapped back “Do you know what it would do to me to know that  _ I hurt you _ ?”

When you reach the point where nothing will be solved with words, he grabs you and pulls you close. Then his lips are punishing against yours, as if he can make you pay for the deceit.

It wasn’t like when Bucky died. 

It wasn’t like when you’d found your way through the grief.

It was different, again.

And at the end of it, you’re barely awake because Steve had pushed you to the edge, over and over again until you had broken, sobbing, pleading because it was all just too much and your body couldn't stand the onslaught of sensation and pleasure started to become pain.

But you managed to open your eyes in time to see him slip away, pulling the door shut behind him as he went.

It’s Hydra’s last base, in the Alps, and you really hated this plan.

“I hate this plan.” You said for the umpteenth time, waiting for the signal with Philips and Carter. There are a million things that can go wrong. A million and one, if you wanted to add the fact that you and Steve were still stuck in that terrible place of fragile temper and anger.

You hated the way he’d spoken to you that morning - clipped, cool tones. All business as he agreed with Peggy to say nothing about this latest development, but his eyes were anything but cool. You’d felt scorched by them.

And then it had been time to go.

“So you’ve said.” Philips snapped. “Enough, agent. Cap’ll get the job done.”

It’s a stupid, stupid plan.

It isn’t entirely unexpected when Peggy’s eyes widen on your face and you glance in a half-thawed puddle to see one side has blossomed with a deep bruise and your lip is split. You sank your head into your hand, turned away from Philips. Bruises healed fast, you’d already learned.

The assault on the lab - the final lab - goes quickly.

It even goes mostly according to plan.

Except Steve followed Schmidt into the air and now...now you were waiting at the base for anything, anything at all to tell you he was alive.

The radio squawked to life in a burst of static.

“Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?”

“Captain Rogers, what is your…”

Peggy practically shoved Morita aside, hands going to the dials as she looked at your face. “Steve, is that you? Are you alright?”

“Peggy! Schmidt’s dead.”

“What about the plane?”

“That’s a little bit tougher to explain.” You could hear the strain in his voice and felt something in your belly clutch and kick.

“Give me your coordinates, I’ll find you a safe landing site.” Peggy’s eyes were on yours and whatever she saw in your face, you knew that she was doing this for you because there was no way in hell your voice would work right now.

“There’s not going to be a safe landing. But I can try and force it down.”

Peg’s curls bobbed as she shook her head in denial, as your legs threatened to buckle and your hands clamped down on the edge of the console to stay upright. “I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do.”

“There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York.” The next words you hear are an apology, and you knew that Steve meant it for you. “I gotta put her in the water.”

“Please,” Peggy’s voice cracked as she looked at you, saw the abject misery and understanding that you were sure was written there. “don’t do this. We have time. We can work it out.”

But you knew - you knew what Steve was apologizing for.

There was no way to know what would happen when he put that plane down. No way to know what this strange bond might rebound on to you.

He was apologizing for possibly killing you both.

The universe, you decided, was unkind.

“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die. Peggy, this is my choice. Y/n?”

“We’re here.” Peggy’s hand grips your own as the control room goes deathly quiet.

“I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance with my best girl.” He doesn’t mean Peggy, and your heart thumped painfully inside your chest. Even now, even to the end, Steve is trying to protect you. Protect your secret. Just in case he doesn't kill you both.

“Alright.” You know that your eyes are as wet as Peggy’s as she answers. “A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club.” And she’s protecting you too, though she holds your gaze with her own and in some small way, it makes you feel like you’re the one talking to Steve, through her.

“You got it.”

As long as you’ll live, you’d never forget the sight of Peggy Carter smiling through her tears at you as she answers. “Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?”

“You know, I still don’t know how to dance.”

There aren’t words in any language on this earth for the feeling that swept through you, as your hand spasmed around Peggy’s, and your heart somehow broke impossibly more.

“I’ll show you how. Just be there.” And for a moment, you thought the universe itself would listen to that whip-sharp voice, unfurled hope rising in your chest that maybe, maybe just one more time the universe will come through for you both...

“We’ll have the band play somethin’ slow. I’d hate to step on your…”

The line went dead with a finality that rang through the room like a church bell.

“Thank you,” You whispered to Peggy, letting go of her hand.

And then everything goes dark as Steve’s death slams into you like a locomotive.


	8. Hard Thaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers is a man out of time, out of luck, and out of soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Whelp, I made a decision finally. We'll be jumping through time a bit the next two chapters to catch it all up...it's basically me ever so slightly tweaking canon...because that's what fanfic is for, right? 😊
> 
> Don't worry, the reader will be back in action soon enough

_ New York City, 2011 _

The gym he’s in is old - old enough to not feel foreign, like so much of New York that he’s seen since he woke up two weeks ago. It smells like sweat and blood and grit and dirt instead of steel and metal and screaming volumes of noise and it’s the only thing other than the feel of the bag in front of him - his third of the night - that is keeping him tethered.

Sixty-five years.

He’s been in the ice for sixty-five years and he doesn’t recognize a damn thing about this world he woke up to, except that it might be the closest thing to hell he can imagine.

Funny how growing up Irish Catholic, hell was an abstract concept, even once he got into the war.

But if there is a hell, this has got to be barely one step removed.

Everyone Steve Rogers knows is dead, or dying, or doesn’t have clearance to know that he’s alive.

You’ve vanished off the face of the earth, as if you’d never existed at all.

Fury swears he’s never heard of you, claims no one by that name has ever worked for the SSR or S.H.I.E.L.D.

Steve doesn't trust Fury, not really, but he's pretty sure he's not being lied to about this.

His fists hit the bag, again and again.

He saw Peggy today, for the first time, and it had cracked something inside him to see the spitfire woman he’d known old and confused. He’d tried to get through to her - tried to ask her what she knew, but dementia...dementia had robbed them both of you.

He has no way of finding out what happened to you when the plane went into the water until he can acclimate to the technology of this time, and even then, he's not so naive as to think he won't be monitored and watched.

His hands are moving harder, faster now.

Even if you  _ had _ survived, you would be old now too. Tucked away in a nursing facility somewhere maybe. 

Would you have moved on? Married, like Peggy? Had children?

Would you still remember him if he did manage to track you down?

All the wondering is driving him crazy.

Which is why he’s in the oldest boxing gym he can find in the middle of the night trying to pummel out his fears and frustrations and anxieties and  _ god, memories _ .

It’s been sixty-five years for everyone else, but for him?

Two weeks.

He can still remember the taste of you on his lips, the way it was between the two of you that last time, the night before they’d gone in and eliminated Schmidt’s last base.

He can still  _ feel _ you under his hands, against his skin.

He can still hear your voice in his goddamn ear when he lays in bed, trying to sleep.

And the bag goes sailing across the gym as he blinks sweat out of his eyes.

He grabs another bag even as his ears catch the ghost-like walk of one Director Nicholas J. Fury.

“Trouble sleeping?”

“I slept for seventy years, sir. I think I’ve had my fill.” If he sleeps, he dreams, he remembers and his mind just can’t take any more punishment. “You here with a mission, sir?”

“I am.”

At least he still has this, then.

_Washington D.C. 2013_

It’s two years later and he’s still here, the man out of time.

Thank God for S.H.I.E.L.D. and the never-ending need for a super-serum soldier to go in and fight. Thank God for the Avengers, even if Tony gets under his skin and Nat twists truth as fluidly as a ballet dancer contorts their body. At least it fills the silence in his head for a little while, makes it easy to push past the past.

It gives him purpose, even if it's only tilting at windmills.

He may have even made a friend who isn’t with S.H.I.E.L.D. He likes Sam Wilson - feels a kindred spirit kind of understanding after his visit to the VA.

Steve knows what it’s like to not take orders well.

Sam knows what it’s like to have no north star anymore, and unlike half of the people Steve knows now, there’s no pity in the man’s face as he asks Steve “What makes you happy?” and Steve answers honestly when he says he isn't sure.

So maybe, just maybe, this  _ time _ isn’t the hell he thought when he first woke up.

And it’s all about to go to shit, he realizes as Rumlow steps on to the elevator.

He’s used to people underestimating him, but it chafes a little that they think he won’t notice as the next few stops fill the small space with poorly disguised, bad-acting S.T.R.I.K.E. agents.

“Before we get started.” He says finally, and _god_ he's so tired suddenly. “Does anyone want to get out?”

Steve estimates he has about ten seconds as the Winter Soldier rolls away from him, that alien looking mask coming off as he plants his feet and stands to shoot Steve a glance that is murderous.

And it’s a face Steve knows better than his own staring at him while his heart pounds in his ears and his throat goes dry.

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

_Bucharest, 2016_

Steve finally has a lead on Buck, but he and Sam are racing against a lot of firepower.

Bucharest.

The apartment Steve stands in is...well, he wasn’t sure what he expected. 

He can see glimpses of James Buchannon Barnes in the candy bars on top of the fridge. The messy, unmade bed - ‘ _ it just gets messed up again when you lay down at the end of the day anyway, Stevie _ ’ - and the way that the drying dishes sit just so on the shelf.

There’s a journal on the top of the fridge and even though there’s no time, Steve takes it, opens it. Stares down at a picture of himself - a newspaper clipping from Sokovia and notes scribbled in Russian.

And on the opposite page, a sketch of your face in profile.

The pencil and paper are worn, the lines smudged, as if they’ve been brushed by fingers many times over and Steve can’t quite stop himself from tracing the line of your jaw.

And even as he responds to Sam, he knows he’s not alone in the room anymore.

Bucky is standing there, hair long, face stubbled. Eyes a little wide, body tensed.

“Do you know me?” Steve asks, and finds that he is afraid of the answer.

“You’re Steve.” Bucky nods to the clipping. “I read about you in a museum.”

Steve doesn’t know how he knows, but he’s certain Bucky is lying to him.

“ _ They’ve set the perimeter. _ ” Sam says in his ear, and they are out of time.

“I know you’re nervous.” He sets the journal down. “You got plenty of reason to be. But you’re lying.”

“I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore.”

“ _They’re entering the building._ ”

“The people who think you did are coming here now.” His feet are taking him closer because despite the fact that the Winter Soldier is dangerous, right now he looks lost and it’s still Bucky standing in front of him. “They’re not planning on taking you alive.”

“That’s smart.” Bucky shifts his weight even as his tone remains neutral, accepting even. “Good strategy.”

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” Steve says, but he can already hear the tread of the attack team’s boots on the stairs outside and Sam’s compromised.

Bucky’s eyes move away from him now as he begins to pull off the gloves covering his hands and Steve sees a resignation there that he knows all too well. “It always ends in a fight.”


	9. Holding Water in Both Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky Barnes remembers you. Well, parts of you anyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the angst! I'm having a shit ton of feelings today and this is how I'm handling it

“I’m not here to judge you.” The man outside the cage - because for all its glass and metal instead of bars, that is what he’s sitting in - says in tones that are meant to be reassuring. “I just want to ask you a few questions. Do you know where you are, James?”

He doesn’t respond. He knows the date and the year and he’s in a secure facility.

He knows who he was born as.

He knows what Hydra turned him into.

He wishes he didn’t know Steve Rogers. He wishes he didn’t know you - a memory shaken loose in the last few weeks, still fuzzy around the edges. His hands sketched you as fast he could in the morning light because the pressure in his chest told him that this is one memory he can't afford to loose, even if he gets it wrong. He can’t quite put words to the sound of your laugh, can’t recall the exact color of your eyes. But he can remember what it was like to hold you in his arms, the warmth of your body and your smile every time he made it back to base...

He wishes he didn’t know what it was like to have two soulmates and hope because now...now there’s nothing left in him that’s worthy of either of you, no matter what Steve tried to tell him in the apartment building.

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.”

He hates the way the man says his birth name, like he knows him. Hates it, and the correction slips out before he can stop it. “My name is Bucky.”

The doctor - shrink, whatever - continues smoothly, without pause, and it trips every instinct he has. Something is not right here... “Tell me, Bucky. You've seen a great deal, haven't you?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“You fear that… if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop. Don't worry.” The doctor looks down at his screen, smiles and presses a finger to it as the rock of foreboding drops in Bucky’s stomach and the doctor’s hand slides into his bag. He pulls out a red notebook -  _ the _ red notebook and Bucky feels his entire body clench. “We only have to talk about one.”

“What the hell is this?”

“Why don't we discuss your home? Not Romania. Certainly not Brooklyn, no. I mean, your real home.” 

Cold sweat breaks out along his spine as he sees that black star on the cover of the journal.

He should have known, he thinks as the doctor stands and walks closer. He should have known that they weren’t done with him. Wouldn’t let him go.

“Желание.” Longing

“No.” He shuts his eyes as the word reaches down, into the conditioning and he can  _ feel it _ take hold inside of his mind like a fist.

“Ржавый.” Rusted.

“Stop.” His voice breaks. He doesn’t want this - he doesn’t want to go back to being the Asset, the Soldat. No no no no...He’d just started to remember the important things - just started to remember you and Brooklyn and really remember Steve...

“Семнадцать.” Seventeen.

His arm is starting to shake, both fists clenched as he starts to pull against the restraints. Feels the give in them, knows if he can get out before the last word, he can pummel this man into pulp before he erases the pieces of Bucky Barnes that are all he has to hold onto. “Stop.”

“Рассвет.” Daybreak

He screams as he strains against the restraints, feels them give, lurches forward and sinks his metal fist into the frame of the door with his entire weight behind it.

“Печь.” Furnace “Девять.” Nine.

Again, he slams his fist against the door. Again, again.

“Добросердечный.” Benign.

As hard as he can now because he can’t stand the thought of losing the memory of you in his arms again. Not again, not after he just got you back.

“Возвращение на Родину.” Homecoming “Один.” One “Грузовой вагон.” Freight car

And Bucky Barnes disappears.

When the world comes back to him, he feels like shit.

His arm - the metal one - is pinned, immobile. His body feels like a truck hit it. For all he knows, a truck  _ did _ hit it. His head feels like a hangover from hell and that’s saying something even though he hasn’t been drunk since a little after Steve rescued him in the war.

His body has never been the same since Schmidt’s scientists worked on him. Between the first time and his stay as the Winter Soldier, he’s fairly certain he isn’t human anymore.

He takes a minute as he shifts through the wreckage inside his head. What does he remember?

He remembers Steve and you and the war and Hydra and all of it.

He doesn’t have to look up to know who’s coming closer. “Steve.”

“Which Bucky am I talking to?” There’s hope in those eyes as Bucky glances up.

“Your mom's name was Sarah...You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.”

And just like that, the hope explodes through Steve’s body as the tension melts away and Bucky wants to warn the idiot not to trust him because, obviously, he can’t be trusted. “Can't read that in a museum.”

His mouth is moving - Steve’s too, and the friend along with him that Bucky recognizes from this morning, but there’s an itch at the back of his mind...a nagging, digging sensation that he knows precedes a memory trying to resurface.

“People are dead. The bombing, the setup. The doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than 'I don't know.'"

The itch grows and Bucky fights to hold on to the conversation, the present. “He wanted to know about Siberia.” The itch is a fire now and he can almost...almost...remember. “Where I was kept." Cold. So cold. "He wanted to know exactly where.”

“Why would he need to know that?”

And the memory unfolds like a sharp-edged flower across the backs of his eyes.

_ He’s never been so fucking cold in his life. _

_ He can’t ever seem to stop the shaking of his muscles, chattering of his teeth, or at least not while he’s still him. He wonders if the other him - the thing they call Soldat - is cold always too. _

_ It doesn’t matter really, he supposes. _

_ They’re going to wipe him again soon anyway and he won’t remember this for a while. _

_ Even when he manages to claw back parts of himself, grasping at straws of the man who was once Bucky Barnes, in between the times where they read those fucking awful words or put him in that goddamn chair, he knows still that there are things missing from him. _

_ His brain must be a block of swiss cheese after all this time. _

_ It’s been four, maybe five years since he fell. Somewhere near there, as best as he can figure. _

_ They don’t really let him check the days off on a calendar, but he’s clocked the passing of time as best he can in this soulless, windowless prison, and he thinks it's four or five years. _

_ He still fights them every time they come to take him to the chair. _

_ The door to the cell opens and the man he knows only as the Handler steps in, his face smug and pleased as Bucky manages to push himself up to a seated position. _

_ “We have a surprise for you, Mr. Barnes.” _

_ “Is it our anniversary already?” He cracks, and it’s weak, but it’s what he’s got to help him hold onto himself - Brooklyn bravado and bad jokes. “I didn't get anything for you." _

_ The Handler’s smile grows and he braces himself because when the Handler is happy, things generally don’t go well for him. “I thought you might like to see a familiar face. On your feet please.” _

_ He manages to stand, and doesn’t flinch away from the guards who shackle his arms. Not only is the beating not worth it - he seems to heal like Steve these days and they use it as an excuse to hurt him more - but because Bucky Barnes will walk headlong into hell before he gives them any more of his pride than they can pry from his mismatched hands. _

_ He knows the route they take by heart - out of the cell, down the hallway, past the other cells and labs and training spaces.  _

_ Pride or not, he can’t quite repress the shiver that sets through him when he sees the framework of the chair, set in the middle of the room like a bizarre statement piece. _

_ “There are some things about the reality of your situation,” Handler tells him as the guard kicks the back of his knee and Bucky hits the floor hard enough to hiss as bone meets floor with enough force to jar his teeth. “That you refuse to accept Mr. Barnes.” _

_ “My Ma used to say the same thing,” He manages to grit before the disturbance he hears in the hallway is spilling into the room. _

_ The guard beside him activates the electric prod warningly and Bucky doesn’t even try to get up, even though it's instinct to try and rise, to stand, as he takes in the brawl that’s moving through the room now. _

_ It’s over too quickly, though Bucky notices several of the new guards are limping, and one is going to be sporting a helluva black eye as two of them grip the arms of the would-be-assailant and force that slight body to their knees a few feet away. _

_ And as the Handler yanks your hair back, pulling your head up to reveal anger and fire and the ripe promise of continued violence in your eyes, Bucky Barnes knows that now,  _ now _ he’s really in hell. _

_ Because you’re  _ here _. _

_ The Handler's smile is impossibly wide as your gaze drifts away from him to take in - _

_ "Bucky." You gasp, stunned and the Handler releases your hair. "You're...you're alive..." You're looking at him like he's a ghost, and a sunrise and he realizes that you thought he was dead. Which, given that he fell from a speeding train, he should be. But you're staring at him, drinking in the sight of him and he's suddenly aware of how wrecked he looks, and his arm, which your eyes widen over. _

_ "Hydra has many friends in many places." The Handler explains. "Even in your beloved SSR. Or is it S.H.I.E.L.D yet?" He shakes his head. "No matter-" _

_ "Just...just kill me if you're going to monologue." You mutter and Bucky can't help but smile at your disrespectful tone because it's the most you thing you could've said. _

_ "Oh," The Handler says, and crouches down to your height. "I'm not going to kill you, Agent y/l/n. Is it still 'agent', or do you prefer Subject 375246?" _

_ "Fuck you." The venomous look you shoot the Handler is new to Bucky, teeth bared in hate.  _

_ The Handler just laughs before brushing your hair back out of your face. "Perhaps I'll take you up on that offer someday. I admire a passionate spirit, Subject 375246." He shoots Bucky an approving glance. "I admire your taste, Sergeant Barnes. And I can appreciate your own show of spirit these last few years." He sighed and rose. "But my superiors grow tired of how inefficient this process is - the men damaged to get you into the chair, the frequency with which we must wipe the slate clean." _

_ And he knows, he knows where this is going as your eyes narrow and you process the words that likely don't mean anything to you yet. _

_ "You will go, unresisting, to the chair this time, Soldat." The Handler says. "And in exchange, we will not kill your soulmate." _

“Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier.” He takes a deep breath. “And I know where y/n is.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Phew boy...I'm nervous about this one you guys. If you're up for it, I'd love some feedback - especially about certain plot point developments...
> 
> Also, I don't know why my brain is struggling so hard with tenses in this work, but I hope it's not giving you too much whiplash..

“Explain this to me again,” Sam demanded and Bucky fought the urge to kick the man’s seat. The three of them were jammed into this tiny clown car - to keep a low profile according to Steve. “Who’s this y/n, and why isn’t she in any of the history books? And is she another Winter Soldier? Can we call her something else? Like Elsa? Does she have superpowers?”

Bucky shot Steve a glance that he hoped conveyed the thought ' _ you are terrible at picking sidekicks _ 'and tried to force himself to relax, even as he wanted to reach up and yank the wheel out of Steve’s hands and stomp his foot on the gas.

Where is the Steve who drove motorcycles into occupied territory? Usually while said motorcycle was under fire. Or on fire.

Bucky grumbles something in Hungarian about slow drivers and Steve shoots him a look, even though Bucky is almost certain Steve doesn't speak Hungarian.

“Y/n,” Steve rolled the car to a stop at a four way intersection. “Y/n was…”

Impatient, Bucky snarled. “She was our soulmate. Is.”

“You’re...you’re joking.”

Bucky’s smile at Sam’s shock was a little feral and he knew it. He couldn’t help it - the memories had been flooding back every couple of minutes and the thought of being too late to get to you was...it was too much. “Not everything goes into the history books.”

“But I mean...you guys were the Howling Commandos, Captain America - there’s literally no mention anywhere of her.” Sam is clearly processing, and as much as Bucky’s impatient, he’ll admit the soldier is moving quickly, considering the enormity of everything that's been dropped on him in such a short time. “And, wouldn’t she be, like, old? Like dead old by now?”

Bucky shook his head. “Erskine’s formula - and Zola’s early version - did something. It carried over, through the bonds.”

“Bonds.” The lightbulb goes on in Sam’s eyes. “When you said our…”

“Both of us.” Steve confirmed. “Bucky met her first.” His eyes met Bucky’s in the rearview as he pulled the car through the intersection. “It was a bit of a shock.”

Sam huffed a laughing breath. “I bet. So your girl isn’t old because the two dinosaurs have super soldier serum and that altered something in her too?”

“If we got injured, a mirror image of the wound would appear on her.” Bucky confesses and sees Steve's eyes snap back to him in shock. “I found out when Hydra got their hands on her. She’d heal - it was just...like her body was trying to mirror ours. So she’s probably still alive there." He says nothing about the experiments he's sure Hydra had run on you too - he doesn't need all of his memories to know that that would be Hydra's next logical step. "That's the last place I saw her - In Siberia.”

He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the moment Hydra - and he - realized what their wounds did.

_ Siberia, 1950 (plus or minus one year) _

_ You were a hostage. _

_ That single fact made you want to try to tear apart your cell - again - but it would only frustrate you more and then you’d have to put the room back together again. _

_ At least it’d help you pass the time. _

_ That was, after all, the biggest threat to your sanity. _

_ Not the shock of finding out Bucky was still alive - not even seeing that mechanical arm grafted onto his left shoulder. Not the knowledge that the SSR had betrayed you, imprisoned you, and then been infiltrated by the very organization it had promised to destroy.  _

_ No, what threatened your mind the most was the endless hours stuck in this cell. _

_ Endless hours to wait and worry and wonder, while Bucky...no, not Bucky, but someone else walking around in his body...was out there doing god-knew what for Hydra. _

_ At least you know he’s okay. No new scars blooming scarlet wounds on your flesh. Not yet.  _

_ You haven’t quite figured out how you’re going to hide that from Hydra’s scientists who occasionally come to draw bloodwork and run tests. _

_ The Handler supervises those visits, and the scientists are always polite, if a little afraid. _

_ You only bit an ear off the one who got too familiar with his hands. _

_ You know eventually something will happen to Bucky though, and it will show on your skin, and because it’s Hydra, they’ll want to find out more, explore your limits. _

_ Hell, the SSR barely waited for you to wake up after Steve died before they shipped you off the grid to an unmarked, unmapped facility in the Balkans to do exactly that. The betrayal - even years later - leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. _

_ At least Hydra didn’t know about your other soulmate. _

_ Whoever had given you over to them hadn’t had enough clearance apparently. _

_ Small mercies. _

_ The door opens and you push up off your cot as the guards step inside, shackles at the ready. You know this routine now, but you still can’t calm your heart as they fasten the cuffs over your wrists. _

_ They always make you watch when they put Bucky back in that fucking chair. _

_ Every goddamn time. _

_ And you know it’s not about you - the Handler just wants you there as a visual aide to keep Bucky in line - but it breaks your heart every time and you know there’s a time coming when you won’t be able to watch it without trying to stop it. _

_ The Handler is already waiting in the room when they bring you in and he’s not happy - you can tell. _

_ This will not end well. _

_ Bucky joins you a few minutes later, and you can tell that things have already gone badly because his jaw is set, eyes mutinous as the slide over the Handler, apologetic as they flick to you. _

_ They must’ve ordered him to do something truly terrible this time, and even under all that conditioning, he hadn’t done it. _

_ Oh, Buck. _

_ “I’m impressed,” The Handler says to Bucky. “With your determination and willpower, Sergeant.” _

_ Oh, this will not end well at all. _

_ The Handler doesn’t move closer to Bucky - he moves closer to you and the guards hold you, keeping you from stepping back as his hand comes up to touch your face with a deceptive gentleness. “Is it for her, I wonder? Such loveliness, even in these unpleasant conditions.” _

_ His fingers tighten on your jaw, bruising the skin beneath. The only thing you can think is ‘thank god this bond doesn’t go the other way’. _

_ “I could easily hurt your lovely soulmate.” He says as he releases you and now he walks to Bucky. “But it wouldn’t be as satisfying.” _

_ He grabs a prod from one of the guards and jams it into Bucky’s shoulder - the metal one. _

_ And you  _ feel  _ it - your body spasming in a bolt of agony that spread all the way down your left arm and pulled a scream from you before you had time to process it, even as the Handler drove the prod in again and you could hear the whine of metal even over your cry. _

_ It  _ hurts _. It’s never hurt before. Your mind struggles to push past it, your SSR training helping, but not enough. _

_ Why did it hurt? _

_ The Handler is more than halfway to you, Bucky already staggering back to his feet, trying to break free of his own guards. _

_ “Keep your hands off of her!” _

_ “Buc-” His name was torn short as an electrified baton hit your stomach and took you to the floor. Pinned in moments, your shirt ripped away from your shoulder, the fabric tearing and leaving you half-exposed. _

_ “Well,” The Handler said. “That is interesting.” _

_ His eyes - all eyes really - are watching the mirror injury - the distinctive burn pattern of the prod - already healing, pinking. _

_ Your vision is blurry with tears as Bucky stares, not at the wound itself, but at the only scar you’ve received that has yet to fade away. _

_ It’s ugly, a reddish jagged line that circles your left shoulder, runs over a part of your chest, down the rib, and up your back. _

_ It’s a perfect outline to match the scar that marks the edge of his own metal arm. _

**“** We should get moving.” Bucky doesn’t know any of these people, but he’s not surprised that they’re here for Steve. He has that way about him, pulling people into fights. Always has.

Bucky knows part of his irritation is because Steve has clearly managed to make a life for himself with these people. The other part is impatience to get to Siberia - to get to you.

But they’re going to need all the help they can to get to Siberia in time to stop Zemo from waking up the other Winter Soldiers.

**“** We got a chopper lined up.” Clint - Bucky thinks it’s Clint - says, even as the airport speakers blasts an alert to evacuate.

**“** Stark.” Bucky agrees with Sam’s statement.

**“** Stark?” The goofy soft one doesn’t seem to be tracking too well. Bucky hopes like hell he brings something useful to this fight.

**“** Suit up.” Steve says.


	11. Siberia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve are on their way to Siberia, on their way to you...

“What's gonna happen to your friends?”

It’s a long moment before Steve answers him, and Bucky wonders if it’s really possible to still know someone after almost a century apart, because he thinks what he can see across Steve’s face is resignation and maybe a little bit of regret. “Whatever it is… I'll deal with it.”

Bucky says the words he’s been thinking since the day he woke up after the fall. “I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve.”

So many people hurt by the debris of the tailspin that is James Buchannon Barnes, left floundering in the wake of destruction that follows him through the years.

Steve’s new friends, everyone he killed when Hydra controlled him. You.

It seems like a steep price to pay for so little in return.

“What you did all those years . . .” Steve’s glance cuts right through him and Bucky knows that Steve is seeing through him, the way he always has. “It wasn't you. You didn't have a choice.”

“I know.” And he does... “But I did it.”

And there isn’t anything Steve can say to that, soulmate or not.

“We’re going to find her, Buck.” Steve promises. “We’re going to find out what happened to her.”

“That’s part of what I’m afraid of, Stevie.” He taps the side of his head. “I have some of it. But there are...there are big goddamn gaps in here. I can...I can feel them.”

“Then tell me what you do know.”

_ Siberia 1962 _

_ It’s not Bucky in the room with you right now, you know that. _

_ You know it’s not him in there. _

_ You  _ hope _ \- what a joke of a word in a place like this - that he’s not in there, trapped behind flat eyes you barely recognize. _

_ You’re actually grateful the chair will take this memory along with all the rest the next time they put him in it, just like it has every time since. _

_ You can see the passing of time on the faces of the Hydra agents in the facility and you know that you’ve been here for eight, maybe nine years? Time is still...difficult...but it certainly is passing. There are lines and wrinkles and the skin on their faces has started to sit differently while gray has begun to show in the Handler's hair. _

_ The Handler is aging, and so are the scientists. _

_ One day you’ll watch them get  _ old _. _

_ The thought gives you a sick kind of pleasure, because they’ll get old and die and it’s the only kind of vengeance you suspect you’re going to get in this life. _

_ Because you and Bucky?  _

_ Aren't. _

_ And sure, part of it is the pods they keep putting you in and pulling you out of - god, you hate when they pump your veins full of drugs and chemicals that feel like icy sludge. _

_ They think the other part of it is the serum Zola injected Bucky with, and there's a lot of talk over Zola's formula and theories every time they pull you out of that hellish pod. _

_ One day they’re going to put you in the dark and never take you out again. _

_ But not today. _

_ Today, the thing that once was James Buchannon Barnes is sitting in a chair in the exam room while the techs work on that mechanical arm and the scientists are watching the monitors that are hooked up to you - measuring your reactions as the technicians poke and prod and make their upgrades. _

_ There’s a new man on the crew - he keeps glancing over his shoulder when you can’t bite back a noise of pain or when something in the arm sparks and hisses. He’s clearly not okay with this and it makes you want to laugh. You were pretty sure being part of Hydra came with a requirement to leave your conscience at the door. _

_ And then they begin pulling away the metal plating from his chest and everything is lost in the watercolor wash of pain. _

_ Two weeks later... _

_ “What is this?” You ask, not taking a seat as the new tech gestured for you to do. so _

_ “It’s not another test,” He says, voice kind, taking a seat himself at the rickety little table in the small break room. “Well, not like the others, at any rate.” _

_ “What do you want?” _

_ His lips flatten, though you don’t think it’s your short, clipped tone that causes it. “Please, y/n, sit. I will answer any question you wish to ask.” _

_ It’s the first time anyone other than Bucky has used your given name since you woke in SSR custody. _

_ There are two mugs on the table, still steaming, the water hot and you manage to grasp it with hands that haven’t been warm in years as you sink into the chair. _

_ If nothing else, this little interlude is better than staring at the walls of your cell, and you're curious what angle Hydra is playing with this man and his kindness. _

_ “What do you want?” You repeat the question. _

_ “To be your friend.”  _

_ You snort, disbelieving. _

_ “I made the argument to my superiors that they could hardly expect to properly study you if your mental status was unstable.” He nods at the mug. “It is only tea. I have done nothing to it.” _

_ You don’t tell him you’re holding on because it’s warm and you have been sliding into a continual state of coldness since the day you lost Steve. “And they just...let you set up this little chat?” _

_ “I am…” He’s searching for the right words. “My work is at the intersection of the mind and the body. It is why Hydra recruited me - for the arm. I am an expert in my field. I know what is good and bad for the brain and the body. They cannot exist without each other. So, if they wish to study your body, they must maintain your brain, da?” _

_ You don’t trust him. You’re not sure you’re capable of trust anymore. But it’s been so long since someone talked to you as anything more than a hostage, a lab rat, a prisoner… _

_ “What’s your name?” You ask finally. _

_ “Dima. Call me Dima.” He says, smiling as you take a sip of the tea.  _

_It takes months - months of cautious, weighted words on both sides - but he teaches you to play chess. Convinces the Handler to let you have books, and you pass the time talking about philosophy and history and literature. None of it new, recent. Naturally. You're well aware that Dima is probably under strict orders to tell you nothing of the outside world._

_It's enough. It keeps you sane._

_"How is he?" You ask as Dima groans at your 'checkmate'._

_It's a topic you're very careful around. Dima isn't supposed to tell you. But it's been...you think back now...it's been the better part of a year since you saw Bucky. You can tell because one of the scientists is wearing a_ hideously _festive lapel pin again._

_Normally, Dima shrugs and smiles and both of you move on._

_This time though, Dima's voice drops to a low, low volume as his spindly fingers begin to reset the board. "They're moving him to a new facility. They're planning to move you both. Soon."_

_And hope is a burning ember in your chest._

_A move means a chance at escape._

_A chance at freedom._

_You meet Dima's gaze, his face guarded and you know that's why he told you. Because somehow, you really have become friends._

_So you school your own expression and the two of you play another game of chess as if nothing has changed._

The last person Bucky thought they’d be walking into the Siberian facility with is Tony Stark. But here he is - not more than a couple hours after the showdown at the airport, plated up in that fantastic suit, snarking away.

No wonder Steve likes him.

Bucky won’t turn down the help though - not when Zemo’s already here and it’s clear that he’s been here long enough to wake the other Winter Soldiers from their sleep. Not when somewhere in the belly of this base, you’re sleeping in a cryo box.

It’s the last time he remembers seeing your face - through a frosted pane of glass as lightning danced behind his eyes and the chair took the knowledge of your name and face one more time.

He just wants to find you and then launch a missile at this facility, wipe it off the map for good.

“I got heat signatures.”

“How many?” Steve asks as the three of them enter the room where Bucky’s lost himself more times than he can count.

“Uh, one.”

The lights come on within the capsules, illuminating the space. The fog within them is thick, too thick to see their faces clearly and Bucky is already moving closer as Zemo’s voice crackles to life through the speaker.

“If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep."

Bucky can see the first soldier now, and there’s a perfect little circle where the bullet entered his skull. He can feel the blood drain from his face as he sees the same wound on each of the sleeping soldiers. 

_ No. _

"Did you really think I wanted more of you?”

His hand clenches around the gun as Zemo keeps talking.

There’s one cryo cell standing empty, open. Chair coated in dust. No one has been in it for a long time.

It isn’t his - he hasn’t been stationed in Siberia for...for decades. Too far away for most of his missions. Pierce, in particular, liked having him close by.

Steve and Tony are focused on Zemo - exchanging words. Bucky knows that Steve is playing for time, for information. Zemo clearly wants to talk, so Steve prompts him, lets him because there’s still parts of this mess that aren’t making sense and  _ you aren’t here. _

_ You aren’t here. _


	12. Civil War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of Civil War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I made myself too sad writing the first draft of this chapter yesterday guys, and spent most of the morning reworking it. Initially, I had planned to have T’Challa play a much larger role in this story (because he's honestly one of my favorite characters in the MCU) but it’s too soon and it feels wrong, so...yeah...
> 
> Fair warning, the next few chapters are going to get quite angsty and unhappy and dark - the reader's story is going to get told
> 
> Also, why is Brock Rumlow so easy to write in as my favorite horrible-person?

Bucky takes another hit from Tony, uses it to close the distance between them and dig his fingers around the edge of the glowing reactor with a roar.

He doesn’t want to do this, but Stark won’t stop, and he’ll go through Steve to get to him, and that’s the thing that Bucky can’t allow, because Steve will always stand between him and whatever comes and Steve does not deserve to go down protecting a man like Bucky, so Bucky has to stop Tony first.

The reactor comes loose as his metal hand whines from the strain.

The blast takes his arm off at the shoulder and he staggers not from the sudden loss of sensation and weight but because he knows somewhere out there you’re in pain, feeling this.

He doesn’t see the second blast, but it takes him off his feet.

Steve blocks the third because that’s what Steve does. Laser blast versus vibranium shield, and Bucky isn’t sure he’ll be able to get back up this time.

Maybe this is really it - maybe this is the end of the line.

It sure feels like it as he watches Steve take a direct hit to the stomach. 

Will you know? Or will the wounds just...stop?

He sees your face hovering over him as Stark and Steve trade blows and words of hurt and he can’t quite keep himself from smiling because, huh, he  _ can _ remember the shape of your eyes after all.

Your hand is warm against his face, and he’s ready - he’s so ready to be done with the fighting and the running and remembering things he doesn’t want to remember anymore.

But your hand disappears from his face and he’s watching you step over him as Tony hurls Steve into the concrete pillars with the kind of force that would physically break a normal man.

“Stay down.” Stark says. “Final warning.”

Bucky stares as Steve staggers back to his feet and says the words that make him wish he had the energy to punch him himself. Or kiss him. He’s not entirely sure.

“I can do this all day.”

“You really have to stop challenging the universe like that, babe.” You say, already bringing up a short baton that shines like Steve’s shield used to and it hits the back of Stark’s leg with the same force as the realization hits Bucky.

_ You’re here _ .

Steve stares up at you, panting as you slam the baton viciously against the other knee joint, dropping Stark in a whine of metal.

You look like a violent angel, and it’s a shock - though not an unpleasant one - to his system. Your hair braided back, a tac suit he doesn’t recognize. You stand like a warrior - like a valkyrie - and he can see the tells of combat training in the stance of your body as you offer him a slight smile and a hand.

He grips your hand, feels the muscles in your arm tense as you help him up. Strength, such strength in you as you help him upright.

There’s very little of the woman he first met in the one who stands before him, carved by time and pain and it’s like looking in a mirror at what time has done to  _ him _ . Done to Bucky. Filed away the edges until they’re sharp, sharp enough to slice.

“Sorry about this, Stark.” You say as the pair of you move to Bucky, who’s staring at you like Steve wants to - as if you’re the beginning and the end and maybe you are.

“That shield doesn't belong to you.” Stark’s tone is cutting as Steve grabs Bucky’s hand and pulls him up, slinging his good arm over his shoulder. “You don't deserve it. My father made that shield!”

Anger fills your face and Steve stops you from striding over to Tony with a hand on your arm. He doesn’t know why - or when - you learned to look at a man with that mixture of hate and disdain, but nothing good can come from letting you act on that caustic mix.

He shakes his head, and he does the one thing Steve Rogers has been dreaming of doing since he first came out of the ice.

He drops the shield to the ground, and leaves Captain America behind in the snow and steel.

And he follows you out into the snow.

You don’t say anything to either of them until the three of you are safely aboard a small jetcraft, Bucky strapped into one of the passenger seats.

He hasn’t stopped looking at you since you stepped over him to help Steve, those eyes wide with more than a little shock and pain.

You give him a soft smile and caress his cheek as you crouch in front of him. “Bucky…”

“Y/n...You’re here.”

“Yep. I’m here. Not going anywhere. But I want to give you something for the pain. Is that okay?” You’re asking because he’s had so few chances to make choices, and because even after everything that’s happened between the two of you, you can’t stand the thought of causing him distress.

His eyes widen, drift to your left arm. “You - you’re not in pain? Doll...”

You laugh, so thrilled to have your Bucky back after all this time, right here, without a trace of the Asset across his face. “I can feel it, Buck, but I’m okay. Will you let me give you something though?”

“I trust you.” He says it so simply, and the purity of the statement just...steals your breath.

You stay crouched in front of him, holding his gaze until the injection you give him kicks in and those eyes go cloudy and then shut as the painkillers kick in.

“Why did he ask if you can feel it?” Steve asks as you stand and make your way to the cockpit, readying the small craft for takeoff. “You can feel the wounds now?”

“No,” You answer without looking at him. “It’s only with his arm. Found out when we were both...when Hydra had us both...that any damage to the prosthetic arm somehow resonates with my nervous system more and I can feel that. I can’t say I understand the technical parts of it.” You shrugged, the motion not-quite casual. “I’ve had a fair amount of practice managing it. Doesn’t mean I won’t be glad when those painkillers kick in a little more in a few minutes.”

“You’re alive.”

“Yup.” You roll the sound out of your mouth. “But we have to go.” You tap your comms. “Your highness?”

“I am good.” T’Challa says in your ear. “Zemo and I shall be stopping at the U.N. Safe flight, y/n.”

“Buckle up, Rogers.” You order as you finish the last bit of prep.

He stares at you the whole time, but you can’t afford to be distracted until the jet is safely on autopilot, heading for Wakanda at a speed that would shock Stark. 

“We have a little time,” You finally say, unclipping from the harness and turning to look at him finally. “And a lot of ground to cover. Welcome back.”

“You’ve been alive this whole time. Awake.” They aren’t questions, because as pretty as Steve Rogers is, he’s got a brilliant mind behind those eyes. “And you didn’t come find us? Either of us?”

He’s also hurt as hell.

You’d expected no less, you remind yourself.

You sigh because where do you even begin?

“How much does Bucky remember? How much has he told you? About what happened?”

Steve shakes his head. “Not much.”

“Well then, let’s start with the crash.” Your hands are shaking - a mix of nerves and of relief because the painkillers you gave Bucky have sunk their teeth into his nervous system and the pain has finally started to leak from your body. “The shock of the impact...it knocked me out. When I woke up, it was in an off-book SSR base. Bucky’s...Buck’s scar manifested - close as I’ve been able to figure, Hydra grafted the first arm the day you put the plane down into the water, so I think the SSR wrote it off as another one of yours.” Your voice is what shakes now. You don’t like to remember the SSR base. “My own people. Sold me out, treated me like an...a curiosity, a lab rat.

“I spent three years there. Poked and prodded and analyzed while they tried to figure out why I wasn’t dead. Why my cells weren’t aging. Why I could heal so quickly. Somewhere in the fourth year, someone in the organization smuggled me to the Siberian facility. Turns out Hydra had its fucking fingers in all kinds of pies, including the SSR.”

Bucky. The Handler.  _ Dima _ .

“It was...it was bad, Steve. They used me to keep him in line.” Your gaze drifts back to Bucky, Steve’s following. “They used me to make him more...more the Winter Soldier. Soldat. The Asset. I’m the reason they broke him.” You blink back tears because you can’t change the past, can’t undo the wounds it’s left on all three of you.

“But you got out.”

“Eventually. I wasn’t...I wasn’t in my right mind for a long time, Steve.” It’s not an explanation, but there isn’t enough time to condense the last seventy odd eighty years into one flight. “I wasn’t right for a really long time, and by the time I was, you’d already been found, and the battle of New York happened.”

“You knew I was alive and alone and you didn’t…”

“I couldn’t.” You willed him to understand, to think it through “The SSR erased me, Steve. They didn’t just bury my file - they literally burned everything I’d ever touched. I couldn’t count on S.H.I.E.L.D. to not disappear me again. You? You they couldn’t touch - even if they wanted to, being the Captain gave you a level of protection I didn’t have.” Your hands curl into fists, because it had taken you  _ months _ to reconcile that within yourself. “They had you on too tight surveillance. I kept checking, kept trying to think of a way to let you know I was alive.”

“And Bucky? You knew he was out there - knew what Hydra made him do and you just...couldn’t do anything to help him?” There’s a sneer in his lips as he shoves the words at you.

The pain that curls through you isn’t because one of them is hurt - it’s your own wounds, emotional and mental that have you flinching away from Steve as if his words were blows.

It’s nothing you haven’t told yourself before, no matter how many times the therapists you’ve worked with have told you to absolve yourself.

“I tried to get Bucky out. More than once. He almost killed me a few times, and then...then they had Rumlow on him and…” Your breath hitches as you see Rumlow’s smug, arrogant face again. You shut your eyes, force out a slow breath. “Let’s just say I had a mercifully brief, and incredibly unsatisfying couple of weeks as a Hydra guest again just before the Triskelion fell.”

“That was…”

“Hell.” You state flatly. “And by the way, if I  _ ever _ have to live through a fight where the two of you are whaling on each other like that ever again, I would really appreciate a heads up. Shuri wasn’t sure I would come through that one.”

Steve’s eyes widen and you know he’s remembering how close to killing him Bucky had come.

“And turns out, drowning  _ does _ carry over too. For the record.”

“My head is spinning, y/n.” He looks miserable. Just all over miserable.

“You’ve had a long couple of days. We’re headed somewhere safe. Somewhere they can pull the conditioning out of Bucky for good this time. And I promise, I will tell you both everything you want to know when we get there.”

“How do you know they can deprogram him?”

“Because they were able to deprogram me first.”


	13. The Past in The Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky learn more about how you've spent the last seventy-odd years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: I’d like to add warnings to this chapter (and the upcoming ones) for angst, anger, despair, hopelessness, and general violence/death/pain. Remember to protect your hearts and minds, darlings.
> 
> Soooo more jumping through time - I’m trying to keep it all coherent, but because this is fanfiction (and I’m lazy LOL) there won’t be a ton of ‘this major event was happening in the world’ stuff.

_ Siberia 1960 _

_ The escape attempt failed miserably. _

_ The Handler, having gone ahead to the secondary location, was waiting as the transport trucks rolled in and as the Winter Soldier dropped you from his shoulder to the hard floor of the garage bay. _

_ You had to think of him that way - Bucky Barnes was your soulmate, and the Winter Soldier was the thing they pulled out of the chair. One had heart and soul, the other had nothing inside. They moved differently, spoke differently. You couldn’t think of them as the same man anymore or you would lose your mind. _

_ The concrete jarred you enough to have you hissing - the Winter Soldier had shattered your leg in the escape attempt - and you know that as unpleasant as that feeling is, the bone is already beginning to heal, and what lies ahead of you in this new facility is about to be so much worse. _

_ “So eager to leave our hospitality,” The Handler says. “When we’ve gone through all this trouble to build a more suitable location for you and all our future Assets. So ungrateful.” _

_ “Fuck you.” It’s not witty, but it’s what you’ve got. _

_ The Handler smiles and you know you’ve made a big mistake. _

_ The scream rips itself from your throat as your muscles convulse for the hundredth time and lightning dances behind your eyes. You can feel it pull, straining your vocal cords and you can’t quite catch the sob of relief as the chair stops, your head falling forward as you try to catch your breath. _

_ You have to hold on. _

_ You have to hold on to who you are. _

_ You have to hold on to Steve - blue eyes, shy smile, quick brain, big heart - and the grief that you’ve learned isn’t ever going to go away. You have to hold on to Bucky,  _ your _ Bucky, and not let him be washed away. You have to hold on to Brooklyn, and bad jokes, and memories of your father and mother and... _

_ You have to hold on. _

_ The Handler’s hand cups your chin, raising your head. “It’s no wonder you are soulmates. Both of you fighters, yes?” _

_ You can see the Winter Soldier standing there, just standing, over the Handler’s shoulder. There isn’t anything on his face. No emotion. No reaction. Just like there hasn’t been for the last several hours. _

_ Bucky Barnes hasn't looked at you out of those eyes in over a year. _

_ If you acknowledge the truth, a part of you isn't sure he ever will again. _

_ “You gonna wipe these stupid mini monologues from my memory or not?” The words are hoarse - you can’t even recognize your own voice - but you manage to push them out. “ ‘Cus honestly, I’m really looking forward to forgetting these little chats.” _

_ The Handler glances to the door, nods his head. _

_ And the guards drag Dima in. _

_ He looks worse than you do - he doesn’t have the benefit of super healing - and it’s obvious that he’s been worked over every which way to Sunday and then some.  _

_ Your heart tightens painfully in your chest to see your only friend like this because you know,  _ you know _ , before the Handler even places a gun in the Asset’s hands, you know what’s going to happen and you even know why. _

_ The Handler doesn’t just want to erase you. _

_ He wants to break you. _

_ So you know that he’s giving the man who is half of your heart the order to kill your only friend - the only person who treats you like a person - because it’s not only efficient to eliminate the risk, but because he wants to strip away the last parts of you that let you hold on. _

_ “Look at me, Dima,” You order, and the broken, bleeding man who taught your impatient self to play chess and speak Russian and hold tight to the last remnants of humanity does so. "Watch me, look at me. It'll be okay," You lie with a weak, forced smile. "It'll be okay." _

_ He knows you're lying too. _

_ You can see in his face that he’s made his peace with it. _

_ It doesn’t stop the tears from rolling down your cheeks as the Handler gives the order and you watch the Winter Soldier take two steps to stand over Dima’s broken body. _

_ And pull the trigger. _

_ No matter what happens to you, you will never forget this moment. _

_ The thought solidifies in your gut, you mind. Resonates down into that place where only Steve and Bucky have ever known you. _

_ You will never forget this. _

_ “Now,” The Handler says as the guards drag Dima’s body out, those spidery fingers opening a blue notebook as the chair begins to whine and hum again. “Let’s try again, shall we?” _

_ Second Siberia Location, 1963 _

_ “Ready to comply.” The words roll out of your mouth, smooth as silk, toneless and weightless as the technicians begin to unstrap you from the chair after a few moments of checking your vitals, your scans, looking for tells that the conditioning hasn't taken this time. _

_ The Handler would take one look at you and know you’re faking. He doesn't need a machine to tell him that. _

_ But the technicians are used to the Winter Soldier saying those words, a compliant and unresisting machine that they can direct and corral and then set loose with his mission objective. You’ve only recently begun to say them, resisting a little less each time they put you in the chair. It’s taken months to build up to this - months of careful, calculated slips and fatigue and you’ve had to be so so cautious not to let the exhaustion you’re putting on a show with become too real. _

_ But now they’re used to this version of you - this version that doesn’t snap and snarl. That doesn’t resist anymore. This version of you that is, inevitably, breaking down under years of attempted memory wipes and conditioning and pain. _

_ Enough so that when an urgent mission call comes in and the Winter Soldier must go, they feel comfortable putting you in the chair even though the Handler and the Winter Soldier have left. Enough so that you’re down to three guards instead of six or seven. _

_ You didn’t resist at all today as they strap you into the chair. You don’t let your heart rate rise, don’t let your muscles clench in anticipation of the pain that you  _ know  _ is coming. _

_ So it’s only natural now, when you say the words the way  _ he _ does that the technicians assume everything has worked according to plan and they’ve finally, finally broken you. _

_ The Handler and the Winter Soldier aren’t here and it’s the only reason it works. _

_ The technicians don’t realize what they’ve done until it’s too late. _

_ And you leave nothing but death behind you when you stumble out into the cold Siberian winter in stolen boots and coat, the blue notebook tucked under your belt. _

_ You can’t save Bucky Barnes this time either. _

Steve and Bucky are both staring at you and it’s almost funny.

Here sit two of the world’s most wanted - and arguably dangerous - men, and while their jaws aren’t literally dropped on the countertop of your kitchen island, it’s a close thing.

“You just...killed them all?” Steve asks in a cautiously neutral tone, hands clenched around a mug that long ago went cool. You half expect it to crack between those tensed palms.

“They made me into a killing machine, Steve. They wanted to have two Assets out there, murdering and toppling their enemies.”

“I’m not judging you, y/n.” Steve finally lets go of the mug and leans back with a sigh. “I’m just...trying to reconcile all this.”

You know 'all of this' isn't just about everything you're telling them. He's trying to reconcile that soft, naive young SSR agent against the woman in front of him and he's struggling. 

It's only been a couple of years for him, and for Bucky too since he broke free of Hydra's conditioning.

For you it's been a literal lifetime.

You’d arrived in Wakanda two days ago, and while it was wonderful to have all three of you reunited, you’d been happy to put off telling them this story - your story - with excuses of Bucky needing scans with Shuri and Steve strategizing the next best moves with T’Challa and you...you threw yourself into training with the Dora because Okoye and Ayo didn’t need super serum to kick your ass and if you were getting your ass kicked there wasn’t time to dread this conversation.

But this morning you’d woken to both soldiers in your kitchen, waiting with coffee and a quiet demand to know what happened to you.

“I thought I remembered all of it,” Bucky finally says. “I’m so...so sorry, y/n. I’m so sorry.”

You tell him you know, because you do, and because there was nothing Bucky Barnes could have done. You tell him you’re sorry you left him behind, sorry you couldn’t find a way to take him with you in 1963.

You know he won’t believe you though.

You didn’t believe it when the others said it to you, not at first. And even though you’ve logically accepted that you weren’t responsible for what you did in that time of your life that you generally prefer to never think about, you know that the emotional acceptance is much harder to find.

Redemption is _hard_.

There’s still so much of the story left to go though, and you wish they wouldn’t ask you to keep going.

“Where did you go from there?” It’s Steve who asks as you start to make breakfast. 

Not because you’re hungry - your hands just need something to do other than reach out and touch them. Constantly. They’re here, they’re alive, and your hands are practically itching with the need to tangle in Bucky’s long locks and settle over Steve’s shoulders. But you can’t...You can’t bring yourself to touch them until they know, because if they turn away from you after all of this, you don’t want to remember what they felt like.

You shrug with a casualness you learned from the best. 

“I went to Canada and joined the mob.”


	14. Staggering Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another piece of the puzzle

“I went to Canada and joined the mob.”

_ Montreal, 1967 _

_ The bar is busy tonight and you’ve been pouring drinks as fast as you can - which is plenty fast and part of why John relies on you being here on the weekends - but they’re still three deep at the bar and the night’s barely started. _

_ “I’m going to ring Bill,” John says as you set your tray back down. “See if he can’t come in.” _

_ “May’s in labor,” You tell him, shaking your head. “Dick took them over to St. Mary’s - said Bill’s hands were shaking too badly to drive.” _

_ “Babies,” John scoffs, already loading up your tray with the next order. “They mess up everything.” _

_ You chuckle, the sound light. “Yeah. That’s kinda their thing, John. Woulda thought you’d known that, seeing as you’re a grandfather twice over now.” _

_ He sneers at you but it’s affectionate. “Take this over to the corner booth, will ya? Sassy broad.” _

_ You make your way through the crowd, saying hello to the regulars, noting who you’re going to need to keep a close eye on tonight. The Staggering Dog is a popular place among the right kind of crowd, and it’s a rare night when you don’t have to intercede before - or after - someone decides not to be on their best behavior. _

_ “Judy,” Hank moves out of the way so you can sidle past him to the corner both and your smile is warm and genuine because despite his towering bulk and ability to literally crush a man’s skull with his bare hands, Hank is a softy. “Busy night?” _

_ “You betcha.” You skate past him. “I’ll getcha a club soda on the next pass.”  _

_ The talk at the corner booth is tense as you set your tray down and start dispensing the drinks. _

_ “Thanks, Jude.” Nicky raises his glass in toast to you, but he’s distracted and you know that doesn’t bode well for the evening. _

_ “Why don’t you stay, Jude, is it?” The man sitting opposite Nicky is dressed in an American -made suit. It’s too flashy for the Dog, and for the way Nicky’s people do business here. He’s also leering at you, clearly thinking the familiarity in Nicky’s voice means you’re a pro. “Beautiful girl can only improve the night, right, Nick?” _

_ You raise an eyebrow at Nicky - who hates being called Nick - and he nods for you to go back to work. But the man in the suit snags your wrist as you turn. _

_ “What’s the rush?” _

_ “It’s a full house.” You explain. “And I don’t do the kind of work you’re implying I do.” _

_ He snorts and for a minute you visualize breaking the offending hand that is still clamped around your wrist. Then he lets go and leans back into the booth, hands raised, the picture of insincere mea culpa. _

_ “Tell John to handle the booth the rest of the night,” Nicky orders as you walk away. _

_ John isn’t happy when you tell him but as he glances over at the booth he nods. “Yeah. Grabby hands American. Hate this guy.” _

_ “He comes in often?” You’ve only been working for John - and Nicky - for a little over a year and you’re still learning the who’s who. _

_ “One or twice a year. You stay behind the bar and I’ll handle the booth.” _

_ And you put it out of your head and get back to work. _

_ It’s a couple hours later and things are finally starting to even out as you watch American Grabby Hands leave, clearly unhappy. Nicky doesn’t look too pleased either as he settles up. _

_ “Bad night?” You ask. _

_ He smiles and shakes his head. “Just...pushy asshole. Sorry about him, earlier. Any word on Bill’s kid yet?” _

_ You grin at him, can’t help it. He may be a tough sonovabitch in the crime circles of Montreal, but Nicky’s good people to his people, and that’s something you can appreciate no matter which side of the law you’re standing on. “A girl. Nancy Francine. Ten fingers, ten toes, all lungs.” _

_ Nicky laughed, and his eyes linger on you just a couple seconds longer. “You feel like celebrating when you get off?” _

_ “Maybe,” You tease, but the movement at the door of the Dog pulls your attention away and time stands completely still. _

_ It’s a tactical squad. Four man team. Heavy, long coats, which means weapons, and likely loaded for bear. They’re already moving into position, about to pour a whole river of lead into the bar when you see the fifth man. _

_ It’s him. _

_ New outfit. And the arm is different - you knew it would be, had felt the pain of the replacement when you’d been smuggled across the Atlantic. _

_ He’s found you. _

_ No, you realize as his gaze settles on Nicky. He’s found his target. _

_ “Get down!” You shout, pulling Nicky over the bar with your soulmate-enhanced strength and the bar erupts into gunfire. A part of you is dying because you know you can’t save anyone else. _

_ Again. _

_ “What the hell!?” Nicky is pissed as he reaches for his own gun and you shake your head. “Who the hell are these guys?” _

_ “Oh, you do not want to know the answer to that question.” You’re already yanking up the hatch to John’s escape tunnel - it’s his pride and joy feature of the bar, and the hinges are well oiled and smooth. _

_ “I’m suddenly finding myself with a lot of questions about your past.” _

_ “You can suddenly find yourself with a lot of lead in your body if we don’t get out of here.” You quip as you shove him - again, with more strength than a woman your size should have according to the gender norms of the time - through the opening, and then drop after him, pulling the hatch shut behind you and bending the locking bar. _

_ Nicky’s eyes are wide even in the darkness of the tunnel. “Maybe I should be asking who the hell you are, Jude.” _

_ “If we live, I may even tell you.” And then you’re dragging him along. “Come on, we need to move. That won’t hold them for long.” _

_ It doesn’t - you can already hear the Winter Soldier straining against the trapdoor.  _

_ You aren’t more than two dozen feet away when it finally surrenders. _

_ Nicky turns and fires and you gasp because Nicky has good aim and hits the metal arm. _

_ You forgot how much you hate getting shot in that arm. _

_ The next shot comes from the Winter Soldier and it takes you in the leg. The one after takes Nicky in the gut. _

_ “Bucky…” You know it’s futile as he strides over on heavy steps, stands over Nicky. “Buck...Please…” _

_ And the Winter Soldier pauses as someone shouts down into the tunnel from the bar in Russian. “Is he dead?” _

_ The silence is so loud you can hear your heart pounding. _

_ “Please,” You say again. “He’s gut-shot. He’s not a threat.” _

_ Those eyes - those glacial, blue eyes are fixed on your face, and there’s the tiniest furrow in his brow. “He’s my mission.” _

_ “He’s going to bleed out down here.” You tell him. “There’s no way he can get out of here and to a hospital in time.” _

_ Nicky’s pained groan underscores your words. _

_ “Please, Bucky…” _

_ He half turns and calls back over his shoulder. “Da.”  _

_ He walks away and you collapse next to Nicky, hands already attempting to apply pressure and stem the blood loss. _

“I remember Montreal.” Bucky says. “I failed. They...they put me in the chair and I remember that the Handler was so, so angry with me. I couldn’t remember why, just that I’d failed the mission.”

“You asked them who the woman was.” You told him, sliding the bowl of cut fruit that no one was actually going to eat across the counter. “You said she knew you, and called you Buck and the Handler knew - or at least suspected - who it was you ran into that night.”

“Nicholas St. Germain.” Bucky tested the name, half question, half memory. "Syndicate boss. Exports specialist. He was cutting into Hydra's profits."

"Nicky?" Steve asked.

You nodded. “Nicky lived. I carried him out of there myself. We never talked about that night again. He died an old man, a good friend. And I knew that somewhere in there, buried under the conditioning, you were still there.” You let out a big sigh. “Unfortunately, the only resources I had were shady connections through Nicky, and I couldn’t risk popping up on anyone’s radar, so tracking you was...problematic. I didn’t see you again until nearly a decade later, and it was by accident.”


	15. Alicante, 1972

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The raft, and what happened in 1972

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Okay, warning tags for smut, violence, tiny bit of heartbreak, fair amounts of sass
> 
> Also - I got a job offer today! 🤸♀️ I start next week and the pace of the chapters will significantly slow...

You promise to tell Bucky the rest of your story when he wakes up again - Shuri has finished studying the scans and she wants to get started on pulling out the conditioning as soon as possible. You've learned to take the genius at her word; if she says you need to start this now, then you need to.

Bucky isn’t happy about it, torn between the need to know more and the desire to be free of those goddamn words finally.

“Buck,” Steve finally intercedes as Bucky opens his mouth to go around with you again. “It’s the past. It’ll be here waiting when you wake up.”

“Pushy, the both of you.” He grumbles. “Pair of punks.”

The smile you and Steve trade is genuine. Some things never change.

You and Steve are with him the whole time as Shuri explains what she wants to do, why, how. You hold his hand while she preps him to go under, and you don’t let go until he’s completely out.

“He’ll be okay,” You tell Steve as the pair of you watch his all-too-still body get placed in the cryo tube. “There aren’t...there are no dreams, no memories. It's not like how Hydra puts you under.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna tell me whatever it is you don’t want Bucky to know now?”

“I’ll tell you on the jet.”

“The jet?”

You raise your eyebrow at him. “I think you have some friends to bail out, don’t you? Come on, Romanoff’s probably waiting already.”

The breakout on the raft goes without a hitch once Natasha stops gaping at you.

“You went over a cliff.” She says finally, once the rest of Steve’s friends are aboard. She’d claimed the copilot’s seat, and she’s turning every bit of that world-class master assassin brain on you. “You went over a cliff ten years ago and you haven’t aged a day.”

“I have a very good skincare regimen.” You deadpan as you maneuver the jet through the last of the storm. It’d made for great cover fleeing the Raft, but it did require having someone at the helm, and since no one else onboard had experience with this kind of bird, it was all up to you.

“So what’s your deal? Terregenesis? Gamma radiation? What?”

“ 'Tasha,” You chide her with the nickname you'd used when she'd been assigned as your bodyguard. “I’m a little bit busy.”

“I got shot for you! I thought you were dead!” 

The jet falls into an awkward silence.

“Oops.” You can feel Steve’s eyes boring holes in the back of your head. “Stop glaring, Rogers. You don’t get to pretend you haven’t done dumb shit in the last ten years.”

“She sure knows you,” Barton chortles - genuinely chortles - and you shoot him a smile.

“Yeaaaah…” You stretch the sound out. “So...I know you thought I was an engineer you were protecting but I was actually on a mission for the Wakandans. Hydra surveillance got a photo of me, realized who I was, and that’s why the Winter Soldier shot you. To get to me. And why he rammed the car off a cliff.”

“He shot you?!”

“And rammed the car off a cliff,” Natasha adds unhelpfully, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting.

“I will make it up to you,” You promise her, because really, it’s not her fault and it _is_ kind of yours. You probably could have let her know you hadn't died, but by the time you'd made it back to Wakanda, Barton had pulled her over to S.H.I.E.L.D. and that was a no-go zone for you. “Steve, did you miss the part where I told you he almost killed me more than once?”

“Y/n,” The growl that comes from him is not the sound of the rational, master strategist Steve Rogers and it raises the hairs on the back of your neck. “We’re going to have a talk about how you keep dropping all these little revelations on me like they’re nothing.”

“Well to be fair,” You point out. “It’s not like it’s  _ you _ specifically. I can’t help it if I had to  _ live _ through the last hundred years. Life happened, you know.”

“Is she a super soldier too?” Sam Wilson whispers to Barton.

“Ehh...sorta?” You’re almost out of the storm’s range now.

“No.” Steve says at the same time.

“Wait, you’re  _ y/n. The y/n _ ?”

“You’ve heard of me?”

Sam laughs. “Oh my god, this is...this is so good. I bet she drives you insane,” He tells Steve. “Your soulmate is as reckless and suicidal and as bad at communication as you. Karma.”

“Soulmate?!” The squawk comes from the rest of the jet and you sigh. It’s going to be a long flight back to Wakanda...

_ Alicante, 1972 _

_ It’s New Years Eve and you’re actually enjoying yourself for once. _

_ Nicky had set you up with some friends in Europe a few years ago when it started getting obvious you weren’t aging. A small group of musicians, traveling often, so no one would notice how the back up singer never really seemed to age as different players and singers came and went. _

_ It was strange to be back on the Continent. Strange to see old landscapes turned new as you toured the countrysides and cities. Stranger still to walk through that small town in France when your world had been turned upside down with one glance into a pair of eyes you missed like...well, like you missed him. Like you missed Steve too. _

_ You avoided London. _

_ And Italy. _

_ And now it was New Years and you were in Spain, where the food was excellent and the weather mild compared to Brooklyn and you weren't, you realized with a little pang of shock, absolutely miserable. _

_ You can’t get drunk - which is less of a shame than you’d thought it would be - but it’s a party in full swing in the ballroom of the Grand Royale hotel and the music is loud and alive in your pulse, the people are vibrant, and there’s an hour to go before midnight when you see him. _

_ He’s dressed like a caterer, which should be hilarious, given the breadth of those shoulders - there isn’t a damn thing that’s subtle about him, yet he manages to slide around the edges of the room almost unnoticed. _

_ He hands off a glass of champagne and you know that he’s here working. _

_ His eyes meet yours as the set winds down and the crowd claps. _

_ You can’t look away. _

_ You don’t want to. _

_ He doesn’t recognize you.  _

_ But his breath pauses, his pulse jumping in his throat. And his pupils are dilated, luminous, as he looks at you while the headliner takes her curtsy with a promise to return for more after a short break.  _

_ It’s a look that is both Bucky and the Winter Soldier and it’s hungry. The heat in that single look makes you feel warm for the first time in decades. _

_ And then he’s gone again, as if he was never there. _

_ You stumble through the door a little after one in the morning and kick your heels off with a happy noise.  _

_ The flat is small, furnished by the landlady who owns the bookstore below, but it’s quiet and it's private and it’s blissfully yours for the rest of the month as the group finishes out the local circuit. _

_ You’ve got your dress halfway unzipped when you realize you aren’t alone. _

_ “Bucky.” You breathe, and realize your mistake as you take in his figure standing in the shadows across from the bed.  _

_ His eyes are hot still, but it isn’t Bucky Barnes standing there. _

_ “You followed me?” He nods and even that simple motion is predatory. “Why?” _

_ “I wanted you.” It’s a simple statement of fact that makes you shiver. “I don’t want things.” _

_ “Do you know who I am?” _

_ “No.” His eyes are glued to the sleeve of your dress that’s falling over your shoulder. “Do you know who I am?” _

_ “I used to.” _

_ And he steps out of the shadow, crosses to you. You can’t move - couldn’t even if you wanted to under the weight of those thick eyelashes and icy eyes that are just burning you alive. When his hand touches your shoulder, you bite back a groan because it’s the first time you’ve been touched by someone in a long time and it’s the first time you’ve been touched by your soulmate in even longer. _

_ “I’m not supposed to want things,” He says, and there’s a hunger burning in his voice to rival your own. Those fingers push the shoulder of your dress down, and his eyes follow the curve of your arm even as his metal hand comes up to cup your face. “But I want you.” _

_ It’s stupid. It’s beyond stupid and reckless and it will break your heart seven ways to Sunday. But you don’t move away from him. _

_ It takes him exactly two seconds to have your dress off, spilled across the floor, your back against the wall, mouth pressed against yours, domineering. His hands are rough, and yours certainly aren’t gentle as you hold him against you with all of your not-inconsiderable strength. _

_ It’s hot, and it’s needy and it’s a little bit desperate as he grinds into you through his pants. You’re already soaking by the time those clever fingers find their way between your folds and he strokes you, pushing you higher, further, until you think you’re going to snap as he yanks your legs up and over his hips. You latch your ankles around the small of his back and roll your hips, dragging along the outline of him and he's so. hard. _

_ He swallows the whimper you let out with a satisfied groan, pins your hands above your head with one hand and you’re fairly certain you’re going to explode as he sinks two fingers inside you with no warning.  _

_ Your teeth sink into his right shoulder and he laughs - it’s dark, masculine, smug - as he pumps them in and out of you and you cum with a gush of wetness all over that hand that has him muttering ‘fuck’ even as he pulled his fingers out of you, fumbling with his pants and then he’s sliding home and both of you groan at the feel of him inside of you. _

_ And then he starts to move and there isn't breath or time or words to think. _

_ He fucks you against the wall, and again on the bed, and bent over the table until neither one of you can move. You just lay there on the floor, a tangled mix of sweaty, exhausted, naked limbs. Racing hearts in the darkness lying amidst broken furniture. _

_ And that’s when you hear it - as his fingers play along the line of your spine - you hear him humming the song you first danced to. Teddy Wilson. _

_ “Bucky?” You ask and his hand freezes on your back, makes a fist as you look at his face. _

_ "Who the hell is Bucky?" He asks. _

_ And a Hydra tactical team comes through the door. _

_ The Handler is old now, but still smug as he follows. "Well," He says as he takes in the room and your state of undress. "Isn't this intimate?" _


	16. Volunteer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: I don't know what's wrong with me that I write this stuff...I'm sorry!
> 
> Upside, lighter chapters ahead

“You can’t tell Bucky.” You tell Steve, as he rubs his head in his hands. “It would kill him to know that that’s how Hydra got their hands on me again.”

You’re all safely over the Wakandan border for the time being, the pair of you in your apartment in the city. 

‘Tasha is off with the Dora - you’re pretty sure that she and Nakia are a match you’re going to regret making, and T’Challa isn’t going to let you forget it. Barton and Lang are on their way home thanks to some deal that Stark worked out involving house arrest. Wilson is drooling over the jets in the hanger, and Shuri is working on Bucky, but it’s a process. Done in stages. A couple months of scans and adjustments...

Not so long in the scheme of things for all of you, really.

“How much...How much of this have you lived through? Just...one bad thing after another.”

“Steve,” You sink down onto the couch beside him, take one of his hands in your own. You wish you could make this easier for him. “I know you want to know what happened to me. I know you think that it will...help...if I fill in the gaps for you. But it isn’t a good story. It isn’t a happy one. I don’t want to tell you it. I don’t want to tell either of you it. Can it be enough that we’re all here?”

Your hand cups his jaw, moves over his face and his eyes close.

“I’m so glad you’re not dead.” You say softly.

He huffs and pulls you into his lap, holds you close. “I’m glad you’re not dead either.”

_ Siberia, 1973 _

_ You wished you were dead as they pulled you from the tank and dumped you on the floor at the feet of the Handler and his protege. Your limbs shook and you can’t even pretend to have the will to push yourself up off the floor, so you lay there as your senses scream and scream and scream at you… _

_ You can hear their voices as if they were shouting in your ear and the technicians at the panels and the guards shuffling their feet out of boredom or nerves or discomfort.  _

_ You can smell the cologne the Protege is wearing and the chemical disinfectant of the labs and the damp, rot water smell of steel and snowmelt.  _

_ The floor under you is pocked with a million miniscule craters, rough, abrading against your naked skin. The air is cold, so cold. Your teeth are chattering and you can’t stop them and the noise and vibration of it is enough to drive you mad. _

_ Sensory deprivation, they called it, when they put you in the tank the first time. Nothing to hear, see, touch. Floating, just floating in darkness for god knew how long. _

_ And then they’d pull you out, put you under lights that were too bright with voices that were too loud. Everything...absolutely  _ everything _ hurt. _

_ And they did it over and over and over again. _

_ You knew what they were doing. _

_ They were breaking you. _

_ You just wished it wasn’t working. _

_ “Put her in the chair.”  _

“ Волонтер.” Volunteer.

_ Training for the SSR. Running, sweating, drilling hand to hand and shooting and explosives and lock picking until your body is ready to drop. Reading and analyzing intelligence reports until your eyes are ready to cross. _

“удар молнии.” Lightning Strike.

_ Bucky’s eyes the first time you meet. _

_ “Well at least buy a guy a drink first.” _

_ Steve’s body, swaying so off beat against your, looking up. _

_ Losing them both. _

“Боец.” Fighter.

_ Your cell. The experiments. Screaming, begging. The chair. _

“ Ди́ма  .” Dima.

_ Red, ugly red spreading, running across a dirty floor. _

_ “ _ Yголовное. _ ”  _ Criminal.

_ Bullets and beer bottles and a trapdoor. Pain and promises and pressing hands into something that squelches and screams. _

“Неразлучник.” Lovebird.

_ Dark. Warm. Wet. Hard. A tune...a tune you can’t quite place before it fades away. _

“чистый лист.” Blank Slate.

_ Ready to comply. _

Nat finds you in the training room that night, soft and ghostlike as she pads across the floor to take a seat beside you. “Can’t sleep?”

“No. It’s...there’re a lot of memories getting stirred up today.”

“I’ll bet.” She snorts. “So, how old are you? Really?”

“Cheeky wench.” She nudges you with her shoulder, affectionate and it takes you back to when she was your bodyguard and the two of you became friends. “Technically, I’m older than Steve by...a month or so? Give or take a day.”

“Well, I haven’t been around as long as you,” She teases, and then her voice grows serious. “But I know what it’s like to carry around a lot of bad history, y/n. I’m here, if you need to talk.”

“Talking…” You laugh and let your head droop. “Everyone wants to talk. About the past. I have a hundred years’ worth of memories, ‘Tasha. Almost a full century now. And they never fade, they never gloss over with time or age. Sometimes my brain feels like it’s going to leak out of my ears if I stop moving forward.”

You don’t see Steve, frozen in the doorway.

“And now…” Your throat is swollen shut, so you lay back, close your eyes. Take a couple of breaths. “They’re both alive, ‘Tash. Alive and away from Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. and I should be so happy right now. But I’m not. And they just want to relive the past.”

“Can you blame them?” Natasha asks, lying alongside you. “I mean, the last time Steve saw you was, what, before he went Capsicle? And Barnes...Barnes can’t really trust his own mind right now, can he? I think they just want to know...they want to know the woman they love is still in there.”

Your eyes close again and so you don’t see Steve’s hands clench. “I don’t know if she is either, ‘Tasha.” A moment passes. “I didn’t know you were such a romantic though.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” She jokes. “I have a reputation to protect.”

The sunrise from the tower is one of your favorite things about Wakanda - watching the morning light, so bright and golden and vibrant spill across the city. There’s so much color here, so much shape and light and texture that you can almost  _ believe _ again.

“Shuri said I might find you up here.” Steve sinks onto the window seat across from you. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” You say, but your eyes are on him as he looks out the window. “It is.”

He turns and sees you staring and he blushes and both of you smile.

For a few minutes it’s just the two of you and the sunrise.

“I don’t think you should tell us anything else.” He blurts. “I think...I don’t think it’s good for any of us. Especially you and Buck. For me it was just a couple years ago - going into the water, waking up...but you two…”

“I don’t want you to think I’m hiding things from you.”

“I don’t. It’s just...it’s going to take some time, isn’t it? To come to terms with it all?”

“Yep.” The single word conveys a whole world of ‘this sucks’.

“How do you do it? Brush it all off and keep moving?” He laughs but there’s no humor in it. “I mean, I thought I was a man out of time, but you…”

“I’ve had a lot of time to learn how to cope, Stevie. Literally. I’ve tried...I’ve tried so many things.” You have, really. Hobbies, substances, experiences. You’ve recreated your identity over and over. You’ve fought and you’ve run and you’ve done things you still can’t quite let go of. “Anything to help ease the passing of it all, the losses that don’t stop coming, the parts of yourself you discover and lose and discover again.” You sigh and you hate that it sounds as old as you feel. “It’s all a part of life, Steve. Even if you hadn’t gone into the ice, we’d still have lived, have changed. Tried, failed, succeeded at so many things. We’re just...doing it on a longer timeline than most.”

“So how do you do it?”

“Well for starters, I don’t let ‘Tasha teach me how to use technology.” He chuckles and that lets you smile. “Give it time. Give yourself permission for it to take time to be okay again.”

“Will it undo this nice moment if I ask you how you ended up in Wakanda?”

You grin. “Now that is actually a story I don’t mind telling. It involves an escape from Hydra, a very lost goatherd, and a queen…”

He groans. “If you tell me you almost died in this one…”

“Oh no. I did die. Only for like, two whole minutes though."


	17. A Goat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Okay, we're going to have some more action-y and soft fluffy scenes coming up, but WARNINGS for character (almost) death in this chapter
> 
> Also, Angela Bassett is pretty much the definition of regal, and yes, she is who I would cast as God if I Believed in that (cheerful agnostic here, sorry)

_ Wakanda, 1977 _

_ It’s a goat that finds you, bleeding out on the Wakandan border. _

_ A goat. _

_ A goddamn goat is watching you die, it’s slitted eyes fixed on you as it continues to chew another mouthful of whatever it is that goats eat. _

_ You're only eighty percent sure that goats are herbivores. _

_ Everything hurts, and not in the way that it does when it’s Bucky or was Steve. Nope, this pain...this pain is all yours. You wouldn’t trade it for the world, even as you know that your super healing can’t keep up with the damage of your fight with your Hydra handlers. Six men, all dead now, and you’re going to join them shortly. _

_ And this goat is going to watch you do it. _

_ If you had the energy to be mad, you would be, but you have just enough energy to appreciate that you're dying as yourself and not as an Asset. It seems...petty...somehow to be mad at the universe for the goat when it’s given you back your soul. _

_ You get to die as yourself at least. _

_ You can hear someone shouting in the distance, but it sounds very very far away and you are so tired…So very tired… _

I’m coming Steve _ , you manage to think as your eyelids sink down like thousand pound boulders.  _ I’m coming home now.

_ You're ready. _

_ “Are you God?” You ask the haloed woman leaning over you with a warm smile as your eyes open. _

_ She laughs, and it sounds like how God would laugh - rich and warm and full - as she helps you upright. “No.” _

_ You blink as you take in the room around you.  _

_ You’ve never seen anything like this. _

_ Not in Stark’s labs, not in all the various labs you’ve been kept in since the war. _

_ If you had to guess, this place is years beyond anything Howard Stark could dream of. Shining trails of metal, open and spacious and airy but also cavernous...you can’t be dead because you’re just not this imaginative. _

_ “Where...where am I?” _

_ “You are in Wakanda. We found you at our borders. You were dying. It was clear you’d killed several of the men near you - our War Dogs say they’re members of Hydra.” The woman is checking you over with soft, compassionate hands and it’s so strange to be treated so gently you can’t even think to resist as she does so. “So, enemy of our enemy. What is your name?” _

_ “Y/n.” You blink again. “My name is y/n.” _

_ One perfectly manicured eyebrow rises at the surprise in your tone. “Did you not expect it to be?” _

_ “It’s a long story.” Your feet are steady under you as you stand and it grounds you. If you have to run or fight, you think you can, maybe. “I haven’t been myself recently.” Heh, look, you made a funny. _

_ “You asked for some people, before you died.” _

_ “I -” You’d  _ died?  _ You thought maybe you’d dreamed that. “I did?” _

_ “Steve. And Bucky. And James. You called out for him a couple times too.” _

_ “Why did you help me?” It’s rude, you know, and you want very badly not to disturb this...serene is the word you want to use...this serene place. But in your experience, people don’t do nice things for no reason, and often do bad things for no reason at all. _

_ She looks at you, looks  _ through _ you, and you have to fight to not look away because it seems as if she is seeing parts of you you weren’t sure you had anymore, and parts you wish you didn’t. _

_ Maybe she is God after all. _

_ “The world has not been kind to you, has it?” She doesn’t wait for your answer. “Come with me.” _

_ It’s like something out of the science fiction specials. _

_ You’re gaping, staring. You couldn’t stop yourself if you wanted to - it’s a shining sea of color and light and glass and you half expect a flying car to come by at any moment as you and this peaceful woman stand on the high platform overlooking the city in the morning light. _

_ You aren’t alone - there are three women, clearly bodyguards, dressed in bright, beautiful uniforms, carrying shining bright spears that remind you of Steve’s shield, before it was painted. Whoever this woman is, she’s appreciated and protected here. _

_ “It’s...it’s stunning.” _

_ She smiles at you, hearing the sincerity in your voice. “I like to think so too. My name,” She continues. “Is Ramonda. I’m a scientist by trade. I studied across several areas of biomedicine. It’s how I was able to detect that there is something not quite right in your head, once we revived and stabilized you. Something that shouldn’t be there. Architecture, if you will. Crude, by our standards.” _

_ You nod. “Hydra...Hydra did something to me.” You laugh and it’s an empty, hollow sound. “They did a lot of things to me. You probably shouldn’t have saved my life. All they have to do is say...say the right words and it’ll turn me back…” Your chest heaves. “Back into a monster.” _

_ “I can remove it.” Ramonda’s words are a fist in your stomach. “It will take time. But we can give you back your mind.” _

_ A breeze sweeps across the platform and you raise your head to the sun as longing carries through you. _

_ “And in exchange…” You know there’s always a price tag. Always. _

_ Though, god, to be yourself? To never wonder what Hydra left sleeping in you?  _

_ She could ask you for almost anything. _

_ “Help us understand this enemy. Help us eliminate its threat to our borders and our people.” _

_ Eliminate Hydra? You look at her, and she takes a half step back from whatever she sees when you look at her with the weight of your years on a face that doesn’t match anymore. The bodyguards move in, halt as she holds up a hand. _

_ “You have yourself a deal.” _

“Ramonda, as in…”

“Queen Ramonda, yes.” You nod, solemnly. “And no, I still cannot stand goats to this day.”

He laughs and it’s boyish and wonderful in the morning light.

You want to capture that image in your mind forever, that head thrown back, the shadows gone in the bright sunshine, the sparkle in those blue eyes as he looks at you and you just get to see the man you fell in love with all those years ago. Not the Captain, not the hero. Just the man from Brooklyn who, despite being unable to sit out a fight, loved so openly and so freely.

You aren’t sure what he sees in your face, but you see the shift it causes as his eyes trail down to your mouth, and there’s enough heat there to set off a whole fireworks display in your chest as your heartbeat starts to pound.

For a moment, you think about closing the distance between you.

For a moment, you think he might let you.

And then it passes. 

There will be other moments, you hope.

You let it go. “I’ve been working for the royal family ever since. Like the annoying aunt that just won’t leave after the holidays. You know, the one who drinks too much and teaches the kids to swear. Or in this case, joyride in jets.” You have a lot of good memories in Wakanda. Those, you think, those you wouldn't mind sharing with Steve and Bucky sometime.

“And for some reason,” T’Challa’s steps are -hah- catlike as he joins the two of you. “We haven’t kicked you out yet.”

“Your life would be so much more boring if I wasn’t here.” 

He rolls his eyes, the long-suffering King, and you grin. “Yes, what would I do if you didn’t teach Shuri your ways?”

“Shuri? What about  _ you?” _

“Your Highness.” Steve stands.

“Captain.”

Steve is already shaking his head. “Not anymore. I’m just...Steve Rogers.”

“You’re not ‘just’ anything, Steve.” You say and T’Challa makes a face as you lean up and press a kiss to Steve’s lips, just because you want to and because you can. “And you, young man…”

“Do you know how disturbing it is to have someone who looks younger than me say that?” T’Challa asks with weary exasperation before his face morphs and now you know you’re not dealing with the young man you view as your nephew but the King of Wakanda as he looks back at Steve. “No one knows you are here yet. And no one from Wakanda will tell them. But...”

“Better we leave, and no one finds out we were here to begin with.” It’s the smart play, the political play. “Steve and I can’t say.”

“You’re taking the Black Widow with you,” T’Challa says and it is not a request.

“Afraid of what she might teach your fiance?”

“Yes.”

Steve snorts, shoulders shaking as he hides his mouth behind a fist.

“Fine, fine, fine. ‘Tasha comes with us. And Wilson. I like him.” You nudge Steve with your shoulder. “Besides, he can help keep you out of trouble.”

T’Challa’s laughter follows you both down the hall.


	18. I've Known Too Many Asgardians

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another day on the run as vigilantes...a guest, a reaction, and a shower later, life is pretty good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Something a little more fluffy, definitely a bit smutty (18+ please), and all's well that involves Asgardian mead.
> 
> In case it isn't becoming clear, the Reader is a *teeny* bit of a chaos agent...

“You can’t…” Sam huffs as the pair of you run through the warehouse. “You can’t keep running from this, y/n.”

“I mean, sure I  _ can _ . But you’re right.” You agree as the two of you duck behind a stack of crates so he can catch his breath and you can check for your pursuers. He actually keeps up fairly well for someone who doesn’t have super serum. “Running will only do so much. Plus, I really wanna steal that rocket launcher…There’s something off about it. It’ll be a great gift for Shuri’s birthday…”

“I was talking about you and Steve.”

You blink. “Oh. Yeah, no. I can run from  _ that _ .”

And it’s true - you absolutely can keep running from that. 

‘That’ being the blistering sexual tension between the two of you that, for whatever reason, Steve doesn’t seem to want to act on. Sure, you're technically on the run from the world at large. Sure you seem to find trouble no matter where you are. So what if the last time the two of you got some was...well, let's say too long and leave it at that.

And you’re not big on pushing the boundaries of consent - he wants you? He knows where to find you.

It's not like you're sharing a safe house or anything.

It's not as if it pains you that he won’t touch you, except in passing, casual touches or training.

You aren’t slowly going insane every time you train together and you watch those thick thighs flex, or when he pins you to the mat - or the wall - with the huge crush of his body. Or when he’s thinking and that furrow appears between his eyebrows and he absently bites his own lip.

Nope.

Not. Going. Insane.

At all.

Sam groans quietly and throws his hands up. “The two of you need some time off from this vigilante bullshit. We’ve been on the run for, what, four months? When was the last time you two had some quality time?”

“I do not need you to quarterback my love life, Wilson.” Steve’s voice is in both your ears and you wince in time with Sam. Steve may not be the Captain anymore, but his voice says he’s  _ disappointed _ like he is. “And y/n, you don’t need the rocket launcher. You have a perfectly good one back at the safe house. Get clear of the area - the authorities are on their way.”

“But…” There really _ is _ something off about the design, something that has you worried. You just can’t put your finger on it without a closer look.

“Get. clear.”

Sam is already opening his mouth to argue with you. You huff. “Fine.” And then you turn off your comms. “After I get that launcher.”

Sam groans.

“I  _ told _ you it wasn’t right.” You say as the warehouse burns a bright green behind the both of you. The flames are kinda neat, in that otherworldly way, and even from this far away you can feel the heat it’s putting off.

You’re covered in soot and ash and a little bit of blood - most of it’s not even yours - and the launcher is slung over your shoulder. 

Fire truck sirens are definitely getting closer.

Sam looks at you like he’d really like to hit you now, but he’s too busy coughing up a lungful of smoke. 

“It’s definitely not firing anything man-made.” You stroke the side of the launcher with a gentle caress. “Shuri is going to love figuring out where you came from, baby.”

“Cap?” Sam asks into his comms - yours got blown out by the force of the explosion when the launcher went off. “Come get your soulmate before I do something drastic.”

You open your mouth to snark back, and the sky drops a freaking rainbow between the two of you - a blast of radiance and color that fades momentarily, leaving etchings in the concrete as a tall, helmed man dressed in honest-to-god armor stands between the two of you.

As entrances go, it’s impressive.

His yellow-gold eyes move over Sam, then you, then the launcher, which is where they stay.

Bingo.

“That weapon is not of your world, mortal.” His deep voice is calm, assured. Arrogant. The stance as he turns to confront you is all warrior.

You snort. “No shit.”

“Give it to me and I will make sure it stays secure.”

You shake your head. “No way, pal.”

“I give you my word as an Asgardian.”

‘Asgardian?’ Sam mouths, wide eyed as you shake your head again. “No good. I’ve known too many Asgardians.”

He smiles, unable to contain it. “It’s good to see you too, y/n.”

“I thought the bifrost was destroyed.” You lean the launcher against the side of a stack of pallets and then pull Heimdall into a hug that he returns - you hear a bone or two crunch, but the big mook puts you down with an affectionate brush of your hair and face.

“I’m part of it. It is part of me. Therefore, wherever I go, the bifrost is also.” He’s tall, so tall you have to crane your neck a bit to look up at him and he grins down at you before pressing a brotherly kiss to your forehead.

You snort. “Nice little bit of logic there. Thor’s got you chasing down artifacts these days?”

“Loki was not the only Asgardian who smuggled goods off world before the fall of Asgard. I’m assigned to collect some of the more...dangerous...elements that have been...mislaid.” He smiles at you. “You look well, little sister.”

And that is the precise moment Steve tackles Heimdall at full speed.

“I’m still never going to get used to that,” Sam says as you cross to help him, reclaiming your prize along the way. His eyes are on your arms, which are blooming bruises already thanks to the side of the building Steve just smashed himself into and as you watch Heimdall hammer a fist into his jaw, you see Sam’s eyes flick there and away.

“I can’t feel it.” You remind him. 

“Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“You want to get between ‘em?”

The look Sam gives you is all ‘hell no’ and it makes you laugh.

“Still, authorities are on their way and all.” You place two fingers between your lips and let out an ear-splitting whistle that would’ve made your drill sergeant proud. “Hey boys! We’re all on the same side.”

They split apart and Steve’s jaw is definitely bruised under that thick beard growth that absolutely does not - even a little - make you wet. Nope.

You remind yourself to get new batteries for your B.o.B. (battery operated boyfriend) soon.

Heimdall’s lip is split, armor a little askew. Their eyes are narrowed on each other with intense distrust, but they move back towards you and Sam, keeping pace with each other the way wary predators do, keeping the other in sight at all times.

“Steve, meet Heimdall, late of Asgard. Heimdall, Steve Rogers.” You provide the introductions

Heimdall’s eyes widen just a little around the edges and his tone is respectful when he says, “Thor speaks well of you, Captain.”

“I’m not a Captain anymore.” Steve’s words are clipped, but he doesn’t brush your hand away as you reach for him. Gods hit just as hard as super soldiers, and you  _ need _ to feel that he’s okay for yourself. “You know Thor?”

Heimdall nods. “He’s my King.”

“We should go.” Sam says, jerking a thumb towards your ride - a nondescript utility van with an advertisement for plumbing on the side. “We can talk in the van. Or the safe house.”

“Yeah.” Steve says, and for one word, there’s a lot going on there. He strides towards the van without another word, leaving you, Sam, and Heimdall looking after him.

“Was it something I said?” Heimdall asks.

“No,” Sam looks like he’s about to start laughing. “I think it was more something you  _ did _ .”

“You’re acting jealous.” You cross your arms over your chest just as Steve turns the shower on, letting the water heat.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Are we five years old?” Steve asks, turning to face you in the small bathroom where you finally cornered him back at the safe house. He’s been broody and sulky and clipped with you despite the fact that you haven’t touched Heimdall since your welcoming hug. “Do we stick out our tongues and go ‘uh-huh’ ‘nyuh’ next while we make silly faces now?”

“If that’s what it takes.” He raises an eyebrow at you and when you don’t move, he proceeds to remove said shirt. 

It takes actual willpower not to drool. Drooling will not help this situation, you remind yourself. But dang if you’re not staring, eyes roaming over that broad chest hungrily. “You have nothing to be jealous of, especially with Heimdall.”

“You looked pretty cozy.” His tone’s already changing as the bathroom begins to fill with curling, heavy steam. Oh good, he’s noticed your staring. Something hungry fills his eyes as he stalks closer to you, those big hands gripping your waist.

“He’s a huggy bastard, but he’s like a brother.” You can’t help the tremble that runs through you as his thumb rubs back and forth over one of your hip bones. “What’s this really about?”

“You won’t touch me.”

“What?” You blink stupidly as he pulls your chin up so you can look him in the eye.

The smile he gives you now is real. “My eyes are up here, darling.”

“I know that.” Your voice is breathy. Skin starting to stick with the heat from the water.

“You won’t touch me.” He says it again, only now his hands are moving over your waist, up your back, your ribs. Slowly. “Haven’t. In months.” He’s  _ petting _ you, and you want to melt under those big hands, but he’s still holding your gaze and you can’t look away from that lovely, heated blue. “You don’t let me sit close to you on the couch,” His fingers start to work at the buttons of your shirt and your intake of breath pulls a corner of those very full lips upwards as he continues. “You always move out of my way, give me space.”

“I’m t-tr-trying to give you space to adjust.” You stammer as one hand slides under your shirt, along naked skin, while the other continues to snap buttons open like it’s nothing.  _ Oh, god...you missed this. _

“Well, stop it.” And he lowers his head towards yours.

It’s  _ homecoming  _ as your eyes close and you get your first, really good taste of Steve for the first time in too long.His hands tighten around you and pull you close even as he lifts you and you wrap your legs around his hips, groaning as you feel the hard imprint of him against your already wet core and he groans into your mouth.

“Y/n…” Your name on his lips is a prayer, a devotional, and a little bit of a curse all in one.

He settles you on the edge of the counter and you whine as he pulls away from you, even if it just is so he can peel you out of your leggings, one leg at a time, hands following the cloth he pulls away as he goes to his knees and lets his mouth follow. Your head falls back as that prickly, bearded face reaches the inside of your thigh with a soft moan.

He laughs as your one of your hands darts to his head, tangling in those golden locks that are past regulation length as he takes a long lick right up the middle of your core and the sound rumbles through you, intimate and masculine as you shiver. One hand closes over your thigh, holding you in place as he uses his tongue and fingers to bring you right up to the edge, gasping and trembling. Every third word is his name or ‘please’ or both.

And then he pushes you over it.

You’re shivering, overstimulated as hell by the time he rises up, grabs the back of your neck, and oh, god, you can taste yourself on his lips. You know your eyes are blown out when he pulls away, smiling as he leans back in and gives you another taste of yourself, his beard wet.

His voice is like gravel when he steps back and shucks his pants. “Get in the shower, y/n. I’m not done with you yet.”

You’re both on the couch when the others get back, Sam laughing as he walks through the door followed by Heimdall and Natasha. His eyebrows go up as he spots you practically in Steve’s lap, wearing a stolen t-shirt, rolled up sweats that are clearly too big for your frame, body lax in equal parts from the shower and...well, other activities.

“‘Bout time.” He says, listing to the side a little. “Look, Nat. Mom and Dad made up!”

You narrow your eyes at him, then at Nat, whose face is pink and eyes are bright and shiny, before resting your eyes on Heimdall. “Did you get them drunk?”

“Just a little.” The Asgardian doesn’t even have the good manners to look ashamed.

Your eyes narrow a little more even as Steve’s hand curls over the top of your thigh possessively and Heimdall takes a little half-step back. “On…”

“Don’t be mad,  _ Mom _ .” Nat laughs, falling on to the other end of the couch with no grace whatsoever. “We wanted to know if you could cover up the taste of the...the mead...with beer.”

“The answer is no.” Sam offers solemnly, tripping over his shoes as he tries to toe them off. “But we had to have a couple to be sure.”

“You’re gonna regret that in the morning.” Steve tells him, and Sam nods as if he’s been handed words of deep wisdom before he stumbles back to his bedroom, presumably to pass out.

“Guys, my room is spinning!” Sam shouts.


	19. A Favor For A Friend p1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Finally getting the next chapter up - part two should be along sometime tomorrow :)

You miss Bucky Barnes with the desperation only Steve Rogers’ soulmate could understand. 

You miss him anyway - miss seeing his face, hearing his laugh - but you miss him a little extra at this exact moment in time.

After all, at least if there were two of you, you might stand a chance at reining in some of Steve’s more...impulsive...decisions.

Right?

Like  _ hurling oneself out of a jet without a parachute when there's a perfectly decent landing spot a half mile from the target _ , you think darkly as you land the jet under the edge of cover and start to prep her for cool down while Nat and Wilson are already well on their way to the base to meet with Steve.

God, you can’t wait to get back to Wakanda and see Bucky.

Bucky would _understand_.

It doesn’t matter that Shuri sends you updates - it’s going well but slow - or that couple of times Bucky has hopped on the kimoyo beads to say hello to you and Steve before they put him back under.

You want to be  _ home. _

You want all of you to be home.

You would also love it if for five - no ten - minutes, Steve Rogers would stop doing things that make you consider committing (light) manslaughter.

“You do know I can hear you, baby?” Steve is laughing in your ear and you realize you’ve said that last bit out loud.

“Rogers, you are in so much trouble when I tell Bucky about that stunt.”

“Relax. I'm fine." Which you know is true. "It’s an abandoned base, y/n. Strictly intel gathering op.”

You snort. “Yeah. For your pal Rhodey. I know how favors work.”

Your tone is a little snippy and you know it. You just can’t quite help it. This mission...it’s a little too close to another part of your life you prefer not to think about, and you’re a little edgier than usual because of it.

You can't help it if the Balkans make your skin crawl.

It should be a simple in and out kind of deal. An old suspected Hydra base that came to light thanks to Nat’s big data release in the Balkans. No activity suspected or visible, according to Stark’s latest scans, which none of you were supposed to have, but had come in 'anonymously' on an encrypted email server Nat had set up to 'stay in touch'.

‘A favor for a friend’ mission was how Steve put it.

And yeah, okay, greasing the wheels of goodwill between your little splinter group of vigilantes and the Avengers - and their various alphabet soup agency friends - probably was a sound strategy in the long term. Rebuild trust, regain a measure of agency in the wider world. 

But the Balkans wasn’t exactly a place you were fond of, and you were already itching to get back in the air and leave the range of mountains behind with the rest of the past.

You blew out a quick breath, tried to center yourself as the team entered the facility and you listened on comms. The jet was prepped and ready, just in case.

Why couldn’t you shake the feeling that this was a terrible call?

You shook your head, as if that would clear it. You needed to get your head in the game.

Making the decision, you opened up the ramp, and strolled down it into the snow, taking a bracing inhale of cool air that had the worst of the cobwebs finally dissipating as you drank in the sight of a snow covered winter wonderland. Visually, it was stunning.

Emotionally? You couldn't wait to get gone.

You let your feet take you a little further from the jet, starting a slow, small circle of the area. Couldn’t hurt to establish a perimeter, right? Plus, the jet was keyed to only the four of you, so it wasn’t like someone could take it for a spin.

You had just cleared the tail section when the whine of a rocket reached your ears and you dove for cover, away from the jet, as the missile slammed into the craft and the shockwave shoved you face-first into the snow.

You really hated the Balkans, you thought, staring at the flaming wreckage of your ride out of here.


	20. A Favor For A Friend p2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things have gone sideways and you from 1949 has a realization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for continuing to read! Next few chapters are going to be a bit darker so, you know, take care of yourselves
> 
> Warnings for violence, implied and explicit, as we find out more about what happened in the Balkans

_ Balkans Facility, 1949 _

_ It’s another round of visitors to the facility and you don’t bother looking at them as the Colonel leads them past your cell. _

_ “And here’s the source of the amazing serum you gentlemen witnessed in action upstairs. Originally, our goal was trying to recreate Erskine’s formula, but even Stark is struggling to reverse engineer the composition. As you saw today, we’ve begun to explore other avenues of research.” It’s the same speech the Colonel has given the last three times he’s brought backers down here, and you can’t help but curl your legs up closer to your body on the cot that serves as your bed, feeling like a carnie amusement as the suits gawk at you. “Let’s head back upstairs, shall we?” _

_ You’ve been here for three years and you know that if you say anything to them, the Colonel will have you beaten and then give you over to the lab coats for some of their more outlandish theories to test. So you sit, mute, and watch them leave. _

_ They treat you like an animal here.  _

_ When you behave the way  _ they _ want, you get two meals a day and a shower once a week and clothes that actually manage to keep you warm. The light in your cell follows a pattern that you think must be similar to daytime and nighttime, and no one beats you. _

_ It took you a year to realize that no one was coming for you, and to swallow the guilt and shame that rose in you every time you didn’t actively fight the bastards.  _

_ Your own people. The goddamn SSR. _

_ And you thought Hydra was bad. _

_ Even when you behave, they still poke and prod and experiment and take samples, over and over and over. _

_ Especially if the bruises or scars appear. _

_ You aren’t sure what it means, and at first it frustrated the scientists that you didn’t have any more answers than they did - after all, Steve is dead, Bucky is dead. It’s just you here now, and it’s not like you know the exact nature of soulmates, or your own bonds. _

_ Now though they just record it all - the ones they see, anyway. _

_ Like the one a year ago where you’d woken with absolutely excruciating pain in your left arm. Hand to God, you thought you’d been having a heart attack or a stroke, but there wasn’t anything wrong with your heart - just your nerves.The lab coats made noises about ‘dying neural connections’ and the rest was just...too technical for you to follow. _

_ ‘Dying neural connections’, you thought as you watched the last of your visitors leave the way they came. It certainly felt like it sometimes. Like you were a dead frog someone was just zapping with a live wire - motion without presence. _

_ How long before you could finally stop twitching? _

“I hate the Balkans,” You say as Steve shouts your name in your ear and you push yourself upright. “Really, really, really hate them. Jet’s toast, guys. We’re not alone here, so watch your six.”

“I’m coming for you,” Steve says and you realize the crunching sounds you’re hearing aren’t static - they’re boots in the snow and they aren’t coming through the mic.

You look up and see a team in winter tac gear closing in on you even as you see the friendly, helpful red laser of a sight landing over your chest. “Motherfu-” 

You don’t feel the second half of the word leave your lips as the tufted dart of a tranquilizer hits you hard enough to knock you back into the snow.

“Y/n?!” Steve asks, his voice becoming more distant “Y/n? Answer me!”

You try, you really do.

But the sky swirls above you and then drops on your head, and everything goes dark.

_ 1949 _

_ There’s something different about this visitor, and it makes your skin crawl as the Colonel does his usual song and dance, while the visitor looks you over with flat, reptilian eyes. _

_ “Is she functional?” He asks, cutting the Colonel off mid-spiel and the question is directed at you. “Confined to a cage like this…” _

_ It’s the first time someone has referred to you like a person in your entire stay. _

_ You glance at the Colonel and the part of you that’s still  _ you  _ cringes in shame because you’re asking him for permission to speak. He nods. _

_ “Define functional.” The words aren’t as sharp as you’d meant them to be, voice rusty from disuse over such a long period of time, but the tone...well, that’s all attitude, even if the Colonel makes you pay for it later and it makes you feel cleaner, stronger, than you have in a long time. _

_ There’s excitement in those flat, dead eyes now and it makes you shiver even as he turns to the Colonel. “Let’s discuss this in more detail over dinner.” It isn’t a request, but an order, and he’s already turning from the Colonel to leave as he calls over his shoulder. “I’m sure you can find something more suitable for her to wear, Colonel.” _

_ The Colonel isn’t happy, but whoever this visitor is must have a helluva lot of pull in the right places because before you know it, you’re standing under the spray of lukewarm water in the shower room. _

_ And that’s when you notice one of the guards - Murphy? McMurvey? Something like that - staring at you. _

_ Or more accurately, staring at the blossoming bruises beginning to appear on your legs. _

_ Like watercolor ink stains, they spill up your body even as you watch. Shin to thigh to hip to torso - deep, violet and violent bruises. _

_ You gape at them. _

_ You’ve had bruises appear before - but not like this. _

_ This is a beating. _

_ It’s methodical, working from bottom to top and then back down even as they’re healing and your stomach sinks even as your heart begins to race because your brain has finally put the pieces together. _

_ Somewhere out there, one of your soulmates is still  _ alive _. _

Reality comes rushing back with a nauseating spin as you lift your head away from your chest.

Balkans. Base. Jet. Fire. 

Tranquilizer.

You try to focus your eyes on anything in front of you and it takes a minute. Whatever was in those tranquilizers...goddamn, you haven’t felt like this since you tried ayahuasca in ‘94...Now that was a trip…

Your eyes are able to distinguish a face, crouched in front of you, peering up at you with something resembling amusement out of dark eyes. You know those eyes, don’t you? You wonder as the rest of his face comes into focus. You’ve seen them before…

The man smiles and the blood in your veins turns icy as Brock Rumlow says four little words.

“Welcome back,  Subject 375246.”


	21. It Doesn't Matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team deals with the aftermath of Rumlow's attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Hey all, another chapter today - I don't know why I enjoy dragging Brock Rumlow into stories, but he's just so fun to despise...

Bucky lands the jet in the clearing near the still-smoldering remains of your jet and if his hands shake on the controls, who can blame him? It's only been a couple hours - thank god for Wakandan technology - and Steve's message wasn't clear on much except that you're missing and someone has taken you.

Shuri and the medical team had tried to stop him. Not very hard, but Shuri had insisted that he keep the tracker monitor on so she could keep an eye on his mind from afar. He'd agreed, mostly because it seemed like the fastest way to get on a jet and find out what was happening.

Nat is waiting for him as he walks down the ramp. “You made good time, Barnes.”

“What do you know?”

Nat leads the way to the wreckage, pointing out tracks in the snow where both of them can read this little slice of history, steps careful so as not to erase or move anything that might help them find you. “Small team. Four to six guys at most. Y/n was outside the jet when it got hit but it threw her clear. They dropped a tranq dart when they dragged her off, and they did take her with them, so we know she’s likely alive out there.”

Alive. Drugged.

Alive, Bucky reminded himself. Alive and more than capable.

“Anything else?”

Nat’s eyes move behind him and he turns to see Steve and Sam striding through the snow from the woods. “We’ll find out.”

“It’s Rumlow.” Sam says, which is good because the tension in Steve’s jaw is clenched tight enough to cut glass and Bucky’s pretty sure he’d shatter a molar or something if he tried to open his mouth right now. “Fucker left his dog tags pinned to a tree with y/n’s favorite throwing knife.”

Rumlow.

The engines in his arm whine and Bucky realizes he’s making a tight, tight fist as the memories come like dogs to heel.

Rumlow, picking him up from missions as the Winter Soldier. Putting him in the chair. Watching him scream as the parts of Bucky Barnes that are trying to resurface are wiped away. Making snide comments that only landed when the chair started to wear off, when the man started to resurface. Ordering him to make it more painful, to make his victims more afraid.

He knows there’s more there - that damnable itch in the back of his mind tells him so - but he pushes it down in favor of focusing on the here and now. On finding you.

“Didn’t he blow up?” Nat asked. “After Steve dropped the Triskelion on him?”

“Apparently he’s got more lives than a cat.” Sam huffs. “How do we find him and y/n?”

“He wanted us to know he has her. He won’t make it hard.” It’s an insight Bucky knows to be true - Rumlow likes to gloat, and he likes an audience. “It’ll be secure, strong enough to hold a super soldier.” The itch in the back of his head is intensifying. Balkans...there’s something about the Balkans...something you said? Something he did? “And close. He won’t risk her waking up outside of containment. He’s an asshole, but he’s smart. He knows..he knows she’s a former Asset. He wouldn’t have taken her if he couldn’t be sure of holding her.”

_ He plans to keep you or he would have left your body there _ , he doesn’t say, but as he catches Steve’s eyes he knows he's not the only one to think it.

“Nat, you get on comms with the Wakandans. They have to have some way to track y/n in the field - there’s no way she was active in the field without a contingency plan for something like this,” It fills Bucky with an iron kind of strength to hear Steve start giving orders. Even if he knows it’s a front, it helps to see the mind turning behind those blue eyes. “We’ve cleared this base, so let’s get plugged into Stark’s systems and see what else is in the area. Start crossing things off the map.”

Bucky is mid stride when the memory slams into him.

_ “You’re here. How?” He can’t take his eyes off you as you pace the length of the room, drinking in the sight of you after all this time. “And Steve? Does he know you’re missing?” _

_ They haven’t put him in the chair yet, but they will soon. He can feel it. They’re just giving the two of you time - time for emotions to bind you both tighter and make sure he doesn’t fight it this time. And he won’t - he won’t risk it, even if he’s mostly sure that the Handler won’t kill you outright. _

_ There are a lot of things the Handler can do that won’t kill you. _

_ But if you’re missing and Steve’s out there...there isn’t anything in the world that’s going to stop Steve Rogers from trying to find you. Not Hydra, not God, nothing. And despite himself, Bucky Barnes starts to feel a little stubborn seedling of hope. _

_ Even if they put him in the chair, take away his memories again, you're alive and Steve will - _

_ “He...he went down in a plane. Not long after you fell. Saved a lot of people.” You tell him and the world drops out from under him as you finally stop pacing, arms wrapped around yourself. “I'm sorry, Bucky. I'm so sorry.You’ve...you’ve been here this whole time?” _

_ Steve’s gone. _

_ Steve Rogers, the man who beat pneumonia and experiments and so many missions that went wrong in a million different ways. His soulmate, his best friend. _

_ It’s a world without Steve in it now as his head drops into his hands and he squeezes, as if it he can unwind the last few minutes by applying enough pressure to his skull as his eyes water and you're there, hand entwined with his own. _

_ He can’t wrap his head around it, and sweet god, he's almost glad the machine will take this loss from him, so he answers your question and shoves the grief as deep as he can. “Ruskies found me in the ravine. Thought I’d been saved at first.” And he had - the Russians and the Fritz weren’t exactly on friendly terms, so he’d thought when he’d woken up to the distinct tones and uniforms that it meant he was safe.  _

_ “Hydra has a lot more fingers in a lot more pies than we thought.” You swallow hard as your eyes go someplace far away and he has to fight not to take you in his arms. You look...lost. “Even in the SSR.” You let out a breath. “That’s how I got here. Steve...when he died...a lot of secrets got spilled. I woke up in a base in the Balkans. Off-book. That was,” You paused, thinking back. “Three or four years now. Lots of lab tests.” _

_ He can tell from the look on your face there's a lot more than lab tests that happened there. _

Balkans.

“Buck?” Steve is under one arm, carrying him onto the jet. His legs aren't quite working - the memory sucked him under so fast. “You with me, pal?”

“She’s been here before.” Bucky slumped gratefully into one of the seats as Sam pulled up the holotable with a geographic map of the area. “Not here, here. But this area. The SSR...they had a base here. It’s the first place she ended up after you went down.”

“Sam?”

Sam is already moving through the marked locations on the map. “On it.”

“We’re gonna find her, Buck.” Steve’s hand is wrapped around his own and Bucky holds it like a lifeline. “But I need you to tell me everything you can remember about Rumlow. I only knew him from before S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, so I can’t trust what I know about him.”

“He talks too much.” Sam offers as Nat rejoins them. "And he's a dick."

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. He likes having control, being in charge, holding all the cards. He’s cruel and sadistic and unfortunately, not at all stupid. He’s not half-bad at strategy. If he’s got a base here, it’ll be well secured and fortified.”

“Rumlow’s had her in custody before.” Steve’s confession has Bucky staring at him, and those Atlas-like shoulders shrug. “She’s let enough slip over the last year that I know it wasn’t good. I don’t know more than that. But it means she’s seen him in action before.”

“She’s smart.” Nat offers. “And devious. If she’s dealt with him before, she’ll be working an angle on him til she can take him out or make a play for escape.” She brushes the red strands out of her face with an impatient huff. “Shuri has some ideas on tracking y/n, but apparently y/n refused the typical tagging. Something about ‘not a damn housecat’.”

“Sounds right.” Steve smiles ruefully, and it's fake as hell. Bucky would put money on when they get you back, Steve personally micro-chipping your ass. He's right there with him. “Sam, what’d you got?”

“Three bases in the immediate area fit the general criteria.”

The comms board dings with an incoming message.

“That was fast.” Natasha’s already frowning as she casts the video message into the air over the table.

“I thought you might be missing your friend by now,” Rumlow’s smug mug has Bucky’s hands - both of them - clenching in anger. “So I thought I’d send you a quick video to say hello in case you missed my message.” The camera shakes for a minute - it’s definitely on a handheld device, Bucky notes - and spins. 

When it settles, it’s on you, cuffed to a chair and it’s obvious you’re drugged out of your mind, head lolling against your chest, limbs slack in their restraints. From behind the camera, one of Rumlow’s hands lifts your chin and shines the camera directly into your face as you let out a whimper and try to pull away.

It takes Bucky a minute to realize the growl filling the jet is coming from Steve.

“We’ve been having a really good time getting reacquainted where it all started for her, but I think we all know how easy I get bored, so I’ll make it easy for you, Cap and co. This video has a geo tag. Come and get your gal.” The camera flips back around to Rumlow as you let out another half-choked sob off-screen. “See ya soon, Cap.”

The video ends.

“Walls are stone. Lighting’s artificial.” Bucky holds onto the facts. “Stone’s old, worn. Floor’s dirty - his footsteps left prints in the dust. Wherever he's holding her hasn't been used in a long time. He can't have had a lot of time to rig the area.” He tries to dig into the recesses of his mind, but if you'd told him anything about the facility in the Balkans, he doesn't have that memory.

“It’s obviously a trap.” Nat is already pulling up the geo tag. “He wants us there - Steve specifically. Fifty fifty odds if he knows Barnes is up and with us. We have to assume he’s got the resources on site to handle super soldiers. The question is why. What’s his endgame here?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve says in  _ that _ tone, the one he had when he was a ninety-pound asthmatic, five dollars of mad crammed into a ten cent body, and came through Erskine’s experiments wholly intact. “We’re going to get y/n.”


	22. Non-Monologuing Villains

This is officially the worst trip ever you decide as lucidity begins to come back in growing waves. 

Whatever the hell Rumlow’s guys keep dosing you with not only has the lovely side effect of turning the world into a goddamn kaleidoscope everytime you lift your head, but when it wears off, hits you with a case of withdrawals you can’t believe. 

Shakes? Check

Vomiting? Check - though at least you managed to splash that all over someone’s boots.

Hallucinations? Oh, check, check, and check baby.

Dima’s bloody smile was a sight you’d take with you to the grave.

You’d make Rumlow pay for that particularly lovely moment of psychotropic fun.

Unfortunately, you’re not out of your mind enough to not realize exactly where you are; your old cell in the SSR base. And it’s fucking with your head enough before you add in whatever it is they keep injecting you with.

There are the tally marks you scratched into the wall, trying to keep track of time. 

A score in the stone floor from a fight with a guard. 

The smell of stone and dust and forgotten things, practically a weight across your senses, clawing at your sanity.

“Coming around for me, sweetheart?”

The taunt gives you something to focus on as the kaleidoscope continues to slide away bit by bit, pulling your focus to the edge of the cot where Rumlow is lounging like he’s on vacation, munching away on an MRE as he watches you sweat your way through this round to clarity.

“Rumlow,” You manage to grit his name out, tone polite. “I’d say nice to see you again, but that’d be lying.”

Booted feet swing over the edge of the cot and the sound they make as they hit and he stands has you wincing. Every damn nerve feels raw and exposed, like it did when they put you into sensory deprivation.

His hand cups your chin and you gasp because the sensation of skin to skin contact is so damn abrasive as he tilts your chin up to hold your gaze. 

You want to wash that smirk off his face with your fist.

“Don’t worry, I sent your friends a map. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.” His thumb moves over your lip and you shiver, not from cold and not the drugs but just from the look in his eyes when he does it.

“Wh-what’s your play here?” You ask as his hand falls away from you and you want to weep with relief. And scrub your skin down a couple of layers. “What’s your angle? Everyone thought you were dead after Lagos. Why pop up now?”

“You know I’m not going to do that thing where I tell you my whole plan, right?” He sinks back down onto the cot. “I’m not really the monologuing villain type. And you know Romanoff trained the S.T.R.I.K.E. teams on counter interrogation.”

You hadn’t actually. “So I’m...blessed...with your company just for funsies?”

He leans forward, bracing his arms on his legs. “Nah. You made me curious, the last time we met. I wanna know more about you - the woman who doesn’t exist. Your pal Bucky, your soulmate, he remembered you. You and Rogers. Had to double the frequency of wipes when Rogers came out of the ice. And then you ran into him in D.C...We almost lost our grip on him that time.”

Your heart squeezes in your chest, so tightly, because you  _ knew _ . When the Winter Soldier dragged you into Hydra’s tender embrace and dropped your body at the feet of Alexander Pierce, you could feel Bucky watching you - could see the confusion and the hesitation on his face when Pierce ordered him to put you in the chair. Had seen his hand clench when they turned the thing on and tried to turn you back into an Asset.

Ramonda had done her job well though. Pierce had been pissed. Rumlow had looked at you like an interesting bug. And Bucky...You thought you’d seen a glimpse of _ him _ before Pierce handed you off to Rumlow for ‘reclamation’.

“Don’t like hearing that, do you? Struck a nerve?”

“You can go back to drugging me anytime if this is you not monologuing.” It’s not wise to snark at the man who’s holding you, but it slips out anyway and you get a hit of satisfaction in watching Rumlow’s jaw tic. 

“You don’t want to hear all about the things your precious soulmate did as the Winter Soldier? All the lives he took, the blood on his hands.”

“You’re forgetting that I was right there. I know who gave the orders, I know who really has that blood on their hands.”

“And when push came to shove, you still left him behind.” Rumlow cocks his head, staring at you. “Was it because he almost killed you that time? I heard he was squeezing the life out of you before you broke his arm and chucked yourself off the transport. Six man recovery team went after you, never came back, and you? You vanish off everyone’s radar ‘til you turn up posing as an engineer.”

“Off is the direction in which you can fuck.” The world is definitely becoming more solid, more real now. And there’s a memory, not so distant, trying to push its way through - something Rumlow said while you were off in the land of high-as-a-kite...

Rumlow’s comms come to life and thanks to your soulmate-enhanced hearing, you get to hear the message at the same time he does.

“Sir, we’ve got them.”

Rumlow’s smile is purely predatory as he responds. “I’m on my way.” He gives yours restraints a quick once over. “Don’t go anywhere, sweetheart. I’ll be back.”

The cuffs are magnetic - the design screams S.H.I.E.L.D. tech, but you test them anyway the second Rumlow is out the door. No give.

The chair...the chair is a different story. It’s wood. Old.

Rookie move, Rumlow.

You start to rock, as little as the cuffs will allow, until you can tip forward onto your feet. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, but it should be enough…

You hurl yourself backwards with the enthusiasm of a nineties telenova wrestler and hit the floor with enough force to drive the air out of your lungs. And shatter the chair against the stone.

It takes you a full five minutes to untangle your limbs -still cuffed - from the debris, being extra careful to keep the cuffs as far from each other as possible so they don’t mag together and leave you in a worse way.

Rumlow said something while you were drugged. You know it. You know it’s important. 

But what was it?

_ “Come and get your gal _ ”

You blink as the puzzle pieces come together. Rumlow  _ knows _ . Rumlow knows that you have two soulmates, somehow. He knew about Bucky from Hydra, but Steve? Steve isn’t in any of your files, and you sure as hell aren’t in any of his.

So how does Rumlow know?


	23. Cracks in the Facade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Creepy bases, history in dust, and cracks in the facade of one Steve Rogers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: So, yeah, it's official. I despise working 40 hours a week and how it interferes with my writing 😓 I literally have the rest of the story outlined but haven't been able to do more than a couple sentences at a time in addition to my daily practice...I think I need to find a way to make a living that does not involve a 9-5 lifestyle...
> 
> Little change of focus for this chapter - was feeling like I'd been leaving the boys a little high and dry

“This is, like, next level creepy. There should be, like, creepy video game music playing right now.” Wilson says and Bucky is inclined to agree with him as they work their way to the next level of the base at Rumlow’s tagged location. 

It’s not that a derelict base isn’t creepy in its own right. 

But there’s definitely something in the air here that has the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up as they sweep corridor after corridor, finding nothing but abandoned room after room.

It doesn’t even look like the SSR had time to pack - equipment is still here, coated in decades’ worth of dust. Files left out. Goddamn mugs of coffee, liquid long since evaporated, are even sitting on consoles and tables.

But of you and Rumlow? Not a fucking sign.

He hopes Nat and Steve are having better luck as he and Sam continue to sweep, room by room, hallway by hallway.

They pass into a loading bay and Sam lets out a whistle at the stacks and stacks of munition crates just...left here.

What the hell happened in this place that would make the SSR just leave this much equipment behind? Bucky wonders as his eyes catch on the logo stamped on the sides of the crates.

Stark Industries.

What.

The.

Hell.

“They all say Stark.” Sam moves a few crates deep and then makes his way back to Bucky.

“Howard, not Tony.” Bucky hasn’t seen that particular logo in...decades. It doesn’t make him feel a lot better about the here and now, but he’s sure Tony’s not involved in any way with Hydra, or with what happened to you in the past. “This is all...this is all from the war, from the look of it.”

“You don’t think he had something to do with what happened to y/n when she was here before, do you?” Sam asks, giving the crates the kind of side-eye that’s been reserved for staring down Bucky and fully-grown men in catsuits.

Bucky knows the shrug he gives could be interpreted a number of ways. “Lotta people forget the Stark fortune was made in weapons. If you’d asked me back in the war? No way. Now?” He blew out a slow breath. “Tony made Ultron, and Howard didn’t have half the morals Tony does.”

“Thought you didn’t like him.”

“I don’t really know him. I killed his parents - he tried to kill me. That’s...understandable. Steve says he’s good people, under it all, and I trust Steve’s gut when it comes to people.” Bucky still remembers Howard and Maria Stark, and he moves on to get past the quick, greasy feeling in his gut. “Steve’s better at people than I am these days, but even I can tell Stark - this Stark - is more about saving the world than...whatever the hell this was.”

“Y/n doesn’t like him.” Sam tells him as they sweep back out into the hallway, closing the door behind them. “Figured there was more to the story, but thought it might’ve been because of that whole Tony-trying-to-kill-you-thing.”

“I’m sure it didn’t help. Any other helpful things you’ve noticed over the last year, Wilson?”

“Yeah. Don’t get between her and the coffee. She  _ always _ has a knife and a pop culture reference.” Sam’s tone is flip even as his body-language is tense. “And if you value your life, for the love of god, let her sleep.”

He snorts, can’t help it as they move deeper into the bowels of the facility. “I guess some things really never change.” He’s fairly sure that the miniscule scar above his eyebrow is from a pre-coffee fugue state back in France during the war, even if he hasn’ remembered the exact moment.

“Bucky? Sam?” Nat’s voice comes over the comms. “We think we found where Rumlow was holding her. Barnes, I think we’re gonna...You need to get down here.”

Bucky understands as soon as he sees Steve standing in a now empty cell, staring at the remains of a familiar chair, shoulders heaving, face pale.

Nat’s standing guard, and he’s never seen her look so worried before. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

Bucky does - he just hasn’t seen it since before the war. “Give us a couple minutes.”

Nat and Sam move off to continue clearing the area as he holsters his gun and eases Steve down onto the edge of the cot behind him. It groans but holds.

“Nice and easy, pal. In through the nose…”

It takes him nearly fifteen minutes, but the color is coming back into Steve’s face and Bucky keeps his hand on Steve’s back, steady and smooth circles. Calming, soothing, anchoring. I’m here, it says, I’m here with you.

“We have to find her.” Are the first words out of Steve’s mouth, and they spill from those lips in a rush of panic. “I can’t...I can’t lose either one of you. Not again.” Those shoulders - those shoulders that carried so much even before they belonged to Captain America - tremble under Bucky's hand as Steve's eyes meet his own. “Buck, I can’t.”

“We’ll find her.” Bucky promises. He means it with everything in him. “Honestly, Stevie, I’m surprised Rumlow hasn’t begged us to take her back by now.”

It’s a bad joke but it tugs the corners of Steve’s mouth up anyway. “Yeah.”

“Look,” Bucky crouches in front of his best friend, his soulmate, and the change in position makes him really notice the lines in Steve’s face under the beard - the wear and tear of time - and a _pang_ goes through him. All of you...you’ve been through so much, and fate has been unkind. “We’re going to find her, Steve. We’re going to find her, and then all three of us are going to take some well deserved time off, alright? No assassins or rescues or missions - an honest to god vacation.”

“I failed you both.” 

The confession shakes him down to the core, quiet words unnerving Bucky in a way he can’t describe. He’s already shaking his head in denial though.  “No, Steve. No. You didn’t fail us. Not ever.”

“I didn’t look for you after the fall,” The words are coming faster now, as if a bottle has been uncorked in the darkness and dust. “I didn’t even try to find your body, Bucky. And then when I came back...I...we...were together," It takes Bucky a minute to track to what Steve means and then, oh, he gets it and he opens his mouth, but Steve is still rolling "And at first it was just grief and loss and then it wasn’t. And I was glad, Buck, so glad I had her…” Steve’s frame is shaking as he looks at Bucky for something - absolution? Forgiveness? Bucky isn’t quite sure “And you were still out there.”

“Steve…” Bucky had no idea that the wounds time left on Steve had run so deep, that no one had seen the fault lines staring out at him from behind Steve’s eyes right now.

Everyone thought he, James Buchannon Barnes, was a head case. But who had taken the time to pry behind the seamless front of Captain America since he'd come out of the ice?

“And then I put that plane into the water, Buck, and I knew I couldn’t protect her from the fallout.” This has been building and building in Steve for so long, Bucky realizes as he grips one of Steve’s hands tightly in his own. There’s nothing he can do now except let Steve get this caustic poison out, out of his head, out of his heart.  “And then I woke up - out of the ice - and it was...It was horrible, but you were both gone. I swear to God, Bucky, I thought you were both dead and gone and it took everything I had just to put one foot in front of the other. Get the job done. I think...I think half the time I was hoping I wouldn’t come back - that it really would be over. I couldn’t, I couldn’t do the job myself, but that didn’t mean I had to get out of the way of it, you know?”

Bucky does know something about that, so he nods, throat tight, and Steve keeps going.

“And then...then it turns out you aren’t dead and S.H.I.E.L.D. is Hydra and y/n was alive that whole time...And I didn’t...I didn’t look for you two. I didn’t find you and they hurt you…” A choked sob makes its way free of Steve’s throat. “The things the two of you had to live through…”

“None of that is your fault, Steve.” Bucky knows he’s not getting through, so he places his hands on either side of that chiseled face, forces Steve to look him in the eye. “None of that is on you, Stevie. Not my fall, not what the SSR did, or Hydra did. None of it, you hear me, you punk?”

The laugh it pulls from Steve is as watery as those blue eyes, but he manages to nod and Bucky lets go of his face.

“We’re getting you a therapist when we get out of here.” He says, pushing to his feet. “Because all of that...that’s a bunch of bullshit, Steve. And I think you know that, and you know y/n would say so too. We’re not done with this.” Steve’s always been the strong one, but Bucky knows his soulmates and he knows the way Steve’s holding himself as he pushes off the cot is just a front.

And from down the hall comes the sounds of gunfire.

“Guys, we’ve got him. Rumlow. And he’s got y/n.” Nat’s voice is alarmed over the comms. “And a jet.”


	24. Close Call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang in there, reader!

Nat and Sam had managed to pin Rumlow - and you - in the far corner of the hanger, but they couldn’t keep him there indefinitely.

Your head was still swimming a little from the drugs, which was the only reason you were in this situation to begin with - you’d heard voices, familiar voices, and like a goddamn rookie, you hadn’t cleared the path on your way to investigate.

Which was how Rumlow had managed to grab you, use you as a fucking shield, and was even now, yanking you flush against him with his gun pointed at your head. If you could just get your limbs to coordinate...

You were so not going to live this down anytime soon. Okoye was going to bust you over this  _ forever _ , deservedly.

“Come on, Rumlow. You have to know we’re just going to follow you.” Wilson called out. “Let y/n go and there’s no need for this to get messier.”

Rumlow laughed. “Still in way over your head, Wilson. Didn’t realize Cap brought his running buddy on the run - seems a little on the nose, doesn’t it?”

“You still talk too damn much.” Wilson fires back.

And both your soulmates have joined the fray - Bucky and Steve’s eyes widening and then narrowing in sync as they spot you and Rumlow.

It’s good to see them, standing shoulder to shoulder for the first time in a year. Though there's something...off...about the set of Steve's shoulders, and there's rage burning in Bucky's eyes.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Rumlow says as Bucky’s hand moves to the holster at his side. “Everyone is going to take their hands off their guns before I get a little trigger happy.”

“How did you know?” You ask. Rumlow likes to talk, if you can stall him… “About Steve and I?”

His breath is hot on the back of your neck as he laughs. “Those couple of weeks when we first met. Came off mission with Cap, saw marks even though the Winter Soldier over there wasn’t active in the field. From there it was just...surveillance.” He laughs again, taking small steps towards the jet as the team starts to move closer. “It was just being at the right place at the right time and comparing injury reports. Can’t believe no one else put it together.”

“No one else interacted with all three of us at the same time.” Not since the war at any rate.

You feel him shrug behind you. “Not really my area of interest.”

“Let her go, Rumlow.” Steve’s taking point, drawing Rumlow’s attention as Sam and Nat skirt off to the sides, trying to find an angle.

“I need her for a little bit longer. She has something I need.” Rumlow’s tone was insincerely apologetic as he backed you up to the - no doubt stolen - quinjet. “Tell you what, though, Rogers. I’ll make sure I get whatever’s left of her back to you when I’m done.”

Has something he needs? What the hell -

Oh. Puzzle pieces fall together in your mind. 

_ Of course he's after it. _

You know you’ve gone several shades paler because a half-snarling Bucky has taken a quarter step in your direction even as Rumlow’s grip tightens on your arm.

“C’mon, Barnes. Don’t make me shoot you,” Rumlow says, almost all the way up the ramp now. “We both know I’ll aim for that shiny new arm of yours. I hear it hurts if I hit you there.”

The last thing you see before the ramp closes is the snarl on Bucky’s face and the promise of retribution burning across Steve’s.


	25. Another Round

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: short one today lovelies
> 
> warnings for torture..(sorry)

“You know what I want, y/n.” Rumlow’s voice carries even over the sound of electricity and screaming. “Tell me what I want to know and it can all stop.”

The current coursing through your body ends and you collapse against the metal frame.

It’s been a couple hours since you’d arrived at the Hydra safe house.

A couple of hours of high-voltage electricity causing your muscles to spasm so hard you were certain something - probably several somethings - had broken and healed and broken again. You don’t even have the insulation of the drugs to keep you from feeling it all.

Your voice probably won’t even work now - Rumlow’s been enjoying himself a little too much - as you slump against the restraints, gasping for breath. You don’t even have the energy to shud der as Rumlow runs a deceptively gentle hand through your hair.

“Just give me what I want and I can make all the pain go away.” He says it like it’s the most reasonable request in the world, as if he’s just waiting patiently for you to come to the correct and inevitable conclusion.

For a half second, you contemplate it.

You could tell him - lay this last secret, this last burden down - and maybe finally walk away from it all. The  _ wanting _ that surges through you at that thought isn’t new. It’s an old friend, your oldest friend and your eyes water from wanting so badly.

You’ve been fighting so long...

But Steve and Bucky are both out there. Alive. Looking for you.

And you wouldn’t be able to look either of them in the eye ever again if you gave someone like Brock Rumlow what he was looking for.

“Give me what I want.” Rumlow says, softly, thumb brushing over your dry lips.

“A second season of Firefly?” Huh, your voice does work, though it’s a raspy, chain-smoker kind of sound. “No wait, an Oscar for Leo? I got it - Gluten free beer that tastes good _? _ ”

“Normally I like women who just don’t quit.” He steps away from you, back towards the controls. “But I’m on a bit of a timeline here, y/n.”

“Can’t help you.” The smile you force feels like a skeletal grin. “Sorry.”

“Last chance. Where is it? Where are the samples?”

You say nothing and brace yourself for another round.


	26. Find Your Way Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry - feeling the angst for no real reason this weekend, sooooooo here goes...

They’ve found you. Finally. It's been the longest two days of Steve's life.

An old Hydra safe house outside of London, in a bad part of town.

Nat - and the Avengers - want to wait til it’s confirmed that Rumlow’s onsite and go in with a full tactical team.

Steve’s done waiting, and so is Bucky as the four of them stand over the holo-table and listen to Tony continue to go on and on about the U.N. and the accords.

“He needs her for something,” Tony is saying again, frowning in miniature holo-person. “That means he’s not going to kill her. We have time. Wait for the tactical team, and get Rumlow off the streets. Steve, come on, you know this is the smart play. Apprehending Crossbones is a big enough poker chip to get you back at the table.”

“Y/n isn’t a bargaining chip.” Steve catches Bucky staring at his neck. “Buck?”

Bucky doesn’t say a word, hands reaching up to pull back the neck of the tac suit, eyes wide and glued to whatever he’s seeing there.

“Barnes, wha-?” Nat doesn’t even finish the question as she sees whatever it is that has Bucky staring. “Jesus.”

“Someone tell me what’s going on.” It’s not a request and he really does not appreciate the certainty that something bad has happened.

“They’re...they’re Lichtenberg figures.” Nat’s fingers ghost over the skin next to Bucky’s. “You get them on skin after lightning - or intense electric current -” She pales. “Tony, we’re going in. We’re going in now.”

Sam cuts the call mid-complaint from Tony and they’re all moving now, and not that Steve isn’t glad, but he’s still not sure what’s going on.

“Rumlow’s hurting her enough to cause her injuries to show up on you.” Bucky makes the connection for him. “I’ve never...I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“I didn’t...I can’t feel them, Bucky.” Is this what you had to deal with every time one of them went into the field? This, this overwhelming, horrible knowing that something was wrong but not being able to feel it?  Bucky’s eyes echo the worry he can feel rising in his chest, but neither of them says anything further as they load up and head out.

You’re out here and you’re hurting and they’re going to bring you home.

They find you ten minutes later in the basement of the safe house. Rumlow’s in the wind, but Steve can’t think about that as he gets a good look at you. Nat is already making a call to Cho as he moves closer.

“Steve?” Your eyes are unfocused, blurry, and he’s glad - so fucking glad - you can’t see him clearly enough to see the look of horror on his face as he gets you untied and sees just what Rumlow spent his time doing to you. “That you?”

“Yeah, y/n, it’s me. I’m here. We’re gonna get you outta here.” He can feel Bucky come up behind him, feel him pause in the doorway. “Buck’s here too.”

“ ‘S a party.” Your words are slurry, your smile small. “Steve?”

“Yeah, y/n?”

“I don’t feel so hot. Might...might go to sleep for a little bit. ‘Kay?” Your eyes are already sliding shut.

“No, no no no. Baby.” He feels like scum when you whimper as he sweeps you up in his arms, already making a beeline for the jet. “Baby, you gotta stay awake a little longer, okay. Can you do that for me?”

But you’re already going under, fingers clenching at the chest of his tac suit and he feels his heart stutter as your breathing evens out with the simplicity of the truly unconscious.


	27. Anchor Me Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safe at last, you and your soldiers get a moment to breathe, and the final secrets come to light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: I'm fairly certain my therapist would have a field day with my inability to go more than ~24 hours without posting a new chapter...OH WELL...Enjoy the long chapter :D
> 
> And okay, teeeeeeny bit of a cliffhanger!

The beep of machines and the smell of disinfectant tell you before you even open your eyes that you’re in a medical facility - high grade one since the medicinal smell is simply neutral instead of overpowering. 

The comforting weight of Steve’s arm over your waist tells you that you’re safe, his body heat sinking through less-than-starchy sheets and the hospital gown to warm you.

For a moment, you just _linger_ along the edges of consciousness, knowing you could let your body sink back into sleep. Knowing that the moment you open your eyes, all of this could disappear into horrible horrible reality and more torture.

It doesn't feel like a dream though - one of your arms has fallen asleep and you're fairly certain your subconscious mind would have put you in either nothing at all, or something a lot more comfortable than a hospital johnny.

But you have to _know_ if it isn’t just a dream, and so even though your eyelids feel like they weigh a thousand pounds, you force them open.

The first thing you see is Bucky, slumped like the world’s most uncomfortable scarecrow in the chair next to the gurney you’re on. His head is tipped back, brow furrowed, mouth open and you can’t help the little laugh that escapes as you realize  _ he’s snoring  _ as a long lock of brown hair dangles dangerously close to those lips.

It’s the most normal thing in the world - to see your soulmate sleeping, snoring, and it brings you to the moment like nothing else could.

It’s real - you’re here. They're here.

The laugh you let out is tinged with the tiniest note of hysterical relief.

The sound is barely audible, but you feel Steve stir as Bucky blinks sleepily.

“Hey.” You say and your voice sounds like it’s been run over shredded glass and fed through a wood chipper for good measure. “What’d I miss?” 

And suddenly Steve is _sobbing_ against you as you turn and wrap your arms around him as much as you can, yanking at least one IV line out in the process, but you can’t care about that because Steve is crying in your arms and you’ve never seen him like this. Never. His huge frame is shaking, a full body reaction that feels like it's been building for a long time.

Bucky comes around the other side of the bed, his hands joining your own on Steve's back. You can read in his face that there's a lot you've missed - that this is a part of something the three of you are going to have to talk about - but you both stay as Steve empties himself in tears against you.

Finally, with a few hiccuping sobs that wrench something in your chest, Steve's tears end, though his hands are clutching you against him tightly, so tightly. As if if he lets you go, he's certain you'll vanish, even though you're half under him at this point.

"How long was I out?" You ask, and damn if your voice doesn't make Bucky wince. 

"You've been out since we found you. Ten..." A quick glance at the clock on the table next to the bed. "Ten hours. We're in the Avengers compound. You're...your body has been doing a lot of healing, but you - Rumlow -"

"Did a number on me?"

Steve's fingers tighten again and you run your hands through his hair as he curls closer - as if that were physically possible, really, it's impressive - and he growls against your collarbone. "Don't joke, y/n."

"You shouldn't talk." Bucky joins in. "You need to conserve your energy. Heal. I'll...I'll let Cho know you're awake. Get you some food." _And give you two a minute alone_ goes unsaid as you nod and he moves to the door as you run your hands again through Steve's hair, petting him because you need to and he needs you to and because you're here and you can.

"When this is over," Steve speaks first. "Rumlow, I mean. When it's over - I think...I think we should quit. All three of us. Move back to Brooklyn or somewhere and...and be done with the battles and the intrigues and the fear. Can we do that, y/n?"

"I like the sound of that."

"You really scared me." This isn't a side of Steve you've seen in a long time - not since the days when you thought Bucky was dead and the two of you were feeling your way through grief and moving on as if they were eggshells that you might crush. This is the man behind the shield, behind the title of Captain and Nomad. "I thought we...I thought we might lose you this time. And then Bucky saw the marks, from Rumlow electrocuting you, and I just...I can't handle that again, y/n. I can't. Not when we've just found each other again."

What marks? Marks from you to him? Was that even possible?

"Steve..."

"I don't care," He continues on, pushing up so now he's hovering over you, looking down at you, gaze intent. "I don't care that the world needs the Avengers or Captain America. I don't care if the Wakandans want you to keep working for the war dog program. I need you and Bucky. I can't go back to the way it was before - before I knew you two were alive. So we quit. All of us. And we get to just...live."

"Stev-"

"I'm not going to let you talk me out of quitting, y/n. I don't care who we have to piss off or bribe or-" His eyes go wide as you press a finger against those lips with amusement.

"I already told T'Challa I was out." You shrug as he blinks. "I was waiting for the right time. When you and Bucky and I could all celebrate. Though being fugitives might make retiring a little tricky."

"Oh."

"Yeah." You pause for a second, re-hearing what Bucky had said. "Wait. We're...at the Avengers compound?"

"Yes." Tony Stark says from the doorway, holding a box of doughnuts. "Though, y'know, not officially. What with that whole 'international fugitives' thing hanging over two thirds of your weird little three way. I brought pastries this time and I'm not ashamed to admit they're a bribe. Please don't hit me."

You raise an eyebrow at him. "Is there a chocolate sprinkles in that box?"

He scoffs and saunters in like he owns the place - which you supposed he technically does - and holds the box out as Steve finally lets go of you and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Part of you mourns the loss of body heat, of intimacy. But another part of you appreciates it as Stark comes closer - it'll be easier to defend yourself if you don't have to untangle yourself from Steve. Old habits dying hard and all that. "You're damn right there is. What do I look like, some kind of heathen? Don't answer that - you're clearly as smart ass as these two dinosaurs."

You make yourself reach into the box and take a donut. Steve declines and Tony shrugs before selecting a bear claw and dropping the box onto the chair where Bucky had been sleeping. For a few brief seconds, there is awkward silence filled by the sounds of chewing and you have to close your eyes as the sugar frosting hits your tongue. When you open them, Steve is staring at your lips with a bright light burning in those blue eyes - a hunger of a less culinary kind - and Stark rolls his eyes.

"Get a room." Another eye roll as you raise a pointed eyebrow. "Fine, fine. Keep it in your pants til later."

"What is this, a party?" Steve asks as Clint and Nat come through the door, followed by Bucky.

"More like a debrief." Clint quips as he throws himself down on the loveseat across from the bed and pops his hand into the popcorn bag that's wafting the delicious scent of butter and salt throughout the room. "Nice to meet you when you're not breaking us out of prison, y/n."

"We need to know what Rumlow's after." 'Tasha's tone is apologetic as she knocks Clint's feet to the floor and claims the second half of the loveseat. "The sooner we get Crossbones off the board, the sooner we can clear Steve's name, and then Barnes'. Which means the three of you can actually retire."

"Is there a bug in this room?" You stage whisper to Steve, who does not appreciate your humor.

"No, but there was in your apartment when you told T'Challa you were 'opting out'." There's a smugness to Natasha's smirk and okay, you have to give it to her - you didn't find a bug when you'd done your last sweep. "Though the exact phrase y/n used was -"

"Debrief! Sounds great!" You jump in and try to wiggle your way into a more upright position.

"So..." Stark is the one who jumps in as Steve helps you adjust the gurney. "Why's Rumlow got such a hard on for you?"

Too easy, but you go for it anyway. "I mean, have you _seen_ me, Stark?"

Steve is the one who rolls his eyes, but Bucky levels _a look_ at you.  “What does he want, y/n?”

You flinch under the combined weight of their stares, but you’re ready, so ready to tell this last secret. “Howard Stark managed to replicate Erskine’s formula."

The room goes completely silent as your words sink in.

"As far as I know, it’s the closest anyone’s come to date. He did it…” You blow out a breath and toss Tony an apologetic glance. “He did it based on blood and tissue samples the SSR collected from me in the late forties, before Hydra’s man took me to Siberia. Howard knew. He knew what they were doing to me in that base, and he didn’t care because the...the lure of recreating the serum was too great.”

“No.” Tony is already shaking his head in denial. “No way. My old man might’ve been a lot of things…”

“I’m sorry.” And you are, genuinely. You wish like hell it wasn’t true. “Howard saw me, twice, before Siberia. He didn’t know about Hydra. But he knew what the SSR was doing to me.”

“That’s why you…” Nat glances between you and Tony. “Well, that would explain some things.”

Steve puts the events of the past few days together first. “Rumlow thinks you know where the second iteration of the serum is.”

“No.” Bucky speaks, because he’s been watching your face intently. “He _knows_ she knows where it is.”


	28. Memory Serves...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Super serum secrets, part two...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: Thanks for the comments and kudos all! As silly as it seems, they really do feed the writing machine-slash-muse. Only a handful of chapters left (eek!)

_ “Rumlow thinks you know where the second iteration of the serum is.” _

_ “No.” Bucky speaks, watching your face intently. “He  _ knows _ she knows where it is.” _

“Four viable samples of Stark’s recreated serum were used to create the second cohort of Winter Soldiers.” You admit, fingers playing with the edge of the blanket in the hand Bucky isn't holding. “There were two additional samples that weren’t used as part of that project. We were couriering them to a secondary facility in seventy-seven, for Hydra.” The muscles in your throat are hurting enough to warn you that even with super soldier hearing, you're pushing your luck, but you know if you don’t tell it now, it may never get out. “My...conditioning...was more thorough than yours.”

It’s an apology to one of the men standing beside you, even if he doesn’t know why.

Bucky’s metal hand tightens, muscle memory showing true as understanding dawns in those eyes. “I thought it was a nightmare. I kept - keep - seeing my hand around your throat and your eyes...you had Soldat eyes, so empty and flat…” He pales. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

You shake your head. “No. No it wasn’t.”

He staggers and Steve is there to catch him. “I tried...I tried to _kill_ you.” He stares at his metal hand with revulsion, and you know he’s remembering it wrapping around your neck and squeezing...

You shake your head again. “No, no Bucky,  _ I _ was trying to kill  _ you _ . You woke up - I don’t know how or why but you did - and you knew what we were doing needed to be stopped. You were defending yourself.” You want to go to him, but the best you can do is hold tightly to his hand. “Buck,  _ you woke me up. _ ”

You can tell from the wash of fog across those eyes that he doesn’t hear you, so you clench at his hand until he looks at you, really looks.

“You, Bucky Barnes, woke me up.” You promise him until he nods, letting out a slow breath.

“What happened next?” Clint asks, interrupting the moment. “Ow!” He rubs at his shoulder where Nat punched him.

“Bucky nearly killed Soldat-me, but it was enough to break through the conditioning. Hydra had realized the plan was fucked - that two Assets were on the loose, and they were regrouping.”

“The plane.” Bucky gasps, eyes wide in horror because now he’s starting to actively remember, your words sparking along neurons, triggering more memory. “ _ I threw you out of the plane _ .”

“But did I die?” No one laughs, and even Tony tosses you an ‘are you serious?’ kind of face. “C’mon, guys, it was ages ago.” No one is amused, so you press on. “I wouldn’t leave you, Bucky. So yeah, you threw me and the remaining two samples out of the plane. To save my life. To stop Hydra. You took control of the plane and led them away.”

“This is better than a soap opera,” Clint says as he shovels a handful of popcorn into his mouth and Natasha reaches for her own handful, shooting him a nasty look as he bats her hand away from the bag.

“Hydra sent a team after me - chased me to the Wakandan border. I killed them, and they returned the favor, and the rest...well, Queen Ramonda found me. I never told anyone what the samples were, but I think they suspected. Once they’d...deprogrammed...me, I hid them somewhere no one would be able to find them. I just...couldn’t trust anyone. Couldn’t trust them to destroy it.”

“So you hid it.” You can’t read Tony’s face right now, which seems wrong. Everything about Tony Stark is overly emotive, louder than life, even on your short acquaintance. 

“Yes. And then I never talked about it again. Til now.” Your throat is starting to get painfully dry now, and you lean back against the pillows as exhaustion starts to rise, like a tide, slowly seeping through you.

“Does Rumlow know where you hid it?” Natasha is the one who asks.

“No.” You shake your head, certainty in every bone of your body.

“Are you sure?” ‘Tasha’s tone is sympathetic as you shake your head again and Bucky’s hand gives yours a supportive squeeze now. “You were in...you were in terrible shape when we found you. No one would fault you for letting something slip. A hint, a clue, anything."

“I didn’t tell him. He lost his temper.” And hadn’t  _ that _ been fun? “But he’s not going to let this go. It’s an obsession. He won’t let it go now.”

“We can use that. Draw him out.” Clint points out as you let yourself fully relax against the pillows. “Let him think he’s got the upper hand…”

You fall asleep to the sounds of the team debating the next best move, Bucky’s hand in yours, and Steve’s eyes on you as your eyes slide shut again.


	29. Breakfast and Broken Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Sooooo...it's gonna be a bit before I get the end of this WIP up (it's all mapped out and halfway written, I swear!) but between work and another new project that currently has me in a stranglehold...yeah...hoping to get something up by the end of the week *note to self: don't make a liar out of me*

You wake up starving and in an actual bed, in an actual room.

“Good afternoon, y/n. I’m F.R.I.D.A.Y.” The Irish lilt comes from nowhere and you jack-knife up and out of the bed, realizing someone has dressed you in sweats and a tank top. “Apologies, I did not mean to startle you.”

“Are you...I mean…” There’s no one in the room. No one.

What. The. Hell.

“I am an A.I. charged with...well, with many things.” The disembodied voice has to be coming from  _ somewhere _ , but it continues without pause as you look for speakers. “Mr. Stark asked me to keep an eye on you when you woke so that Capsicle and Manchurian Candidate would leave to take care of themselves. They are currently asleep - would you like me to wake them?”

Of course. Tony Stark does love his artificial intelligence projects.

“Who’re Capsicle and Manchur-” It hits you before you even finish the question. “You mean Steve and Bucky?”

“Yes, though Mr. Stark prefers their code names. Would you like me to alert them?”

“No. No, they should rest.” You can imagine that they need it after the last few days.

“Very well. Can I assist you with anything?”

“Uh...A shower? And some food. Food would be good.” Your stomach seconds the motion with a hungry growl that you’re sure the A.I. caught. “Maybe food first, F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

“There is a kitchen on this floor. Just turn left out of the door, and you’ll find it before the elevator.”

“Thanks.”

Your footsteps are soft, silent as you move into the hallway where half a dozen identical doors lead to other rooms. Bucky and Steve are probably behind one of them, but your stomach lets out another grumble so you move left down the hall like the disembodied voice told you to. 

As promised, there is a kitchen, fully stocked and you’re so focused on the food - Pop Tarts? HELL YEAH - that it takes you a minute to realize you’re not alone.

Of course, that could be because your company is crouched on the ceiling like a freaking Inception scene, if Inception featured teenagers…

“Hi.” He waves at you, and you numbly wave back. “Do you want me to get Captain for you?”

“Uh…” You say smoothly as he drops from the ceiling to the countertop. “No?”

“Didn’t mean to spook you - I’m trying to retrain the way my brain interprets space for fights to more than just ‘down’ and ‘up’.” He flushes a little with a puppy-like earnestness and you realize  you’re staring. “I’m still...still working on spatial awareness, obviously, and Mr. Stark doesn’t freak out the way my Aunt May does when I walk around on the walls and the ceiling…”

You grin, charmed by the babbling tone. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Uh...Peter Parker. Unless we’re doing made-up names,” He rushes to add. “Cause then it’s Spiderman.”

“I’m y/n.”

“Nice to meet you, y/n. So...what’s your superpower?”

You shrug. “I don’t think I have one. Not really.”

“Being annoying? Hey kid,” Tony leans against the fridge with feigned casualness. “You finish your homework?”

“Oh. Yeah, of -” Parker’s eyes ping-pong between the two of you and you can’t quite hide the smile as they widen with realization that Tony's trying to get him out of the room. “I mean...no? I should...I should go do...things and stuff.”

“Cute kid.” The toaster oven dings and you open it and reach greedy fingers towards the pastries, letting out a hiss because, duh, they’re hot.

“He’s adopted.” The faked casualness falls away the second Peter Parker is out of sight, leaving you with singed fingertips and Tony Stark who doesn’t resemble a genius billionaire playboy at the moment so much as a spooked cat, creeping around the edges of the room.

“Couldn’t tell.”

“So.”

“So.” You blow on your fingertips as he moves into the kitchen more. “This isn’t awkward at all.”

He snorts. “Yeah. Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what you went through. With...the old man.” Tony grabs an apple from the fruit basket, tosses it up a couple of times while keeping an eye on you as you bite into the Pop Tart with a greedy moan. “Still can’t wrap my head around it, but I’m usually pretty good at spotting liars.” Now he looks you dead on. “You weren’t lying.”

“I wish I was.” It comes out a little garbled as you speak around hot cinnamon and brown sugar. “I’m sorry I wrecked your suit in Siberia.”

“Now you’re lying.”

You shrug. “Well, to be fair, I was in a lot of pain thanks to you blasting Bucky’s arm off. Makes a girl cranky.”

“Yeah - how exactly did you manage that?”

“Practice. And spite. Whole lotta spite.”

“I can get behind that.” Whatever he sees in your face lets him deflate a little. “Look, it’s clear Rogers and Barnes are gone over you. Be careful with those two dinosaurs, okay?”

You blink at him, not sure you heard that right. “Are you...are you warning me? After you pulled that shit with the Sokovian Accords and tried to kill Bucky?”

“I’m fickle like that.” You get the sense he’s lying to you on that one. “Capsicle is a good man, even if I don’t see eye to eye with him on a lot of things. And Barnes…” He blows out a slow breath. “Well, we aren’t ever going to be besties, but ah, let’s just say I’ve had some time to process and if anyone can understand not acting in your right state of mind…”

It’s the closest thing you’re going to get to an apology and an explanation, so you nod and hope it says ‘I understand’, even if you don’t, not really.

“Anywhoo...You’ve met F.R.I., so if you need anything, just...just let her know. Oh, one more thing,” He calls, tossing the apple back in the basket. “You, Capsicle, and Manchurian are all still on international watch lists, so if you could stay indoors, that would help a lot. They’re crashed out in the third room on the right.”

And then he’s gone, leaving you blinking after him.

Your stomach lets out another grumble and you turn to the fridge. Girl’s gotta have priorities, right?


	30. A Goat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: So, yeah, I'm not pleased with this work this week. I'm definitely running out of steam on writing fanfic, but I'm trying to push through on this work and finish, instead of going on hiatus. If I'm being honest, I wanted to write some smut this week but after work I just did not have the energy (WAH WAH WAH) so hopefully smut next time!

“You...you really hate goats, don’t you?” Steve asks as you shudder against him.

Two weeks.

It had taken you nearly two weeks to recover fully, and you knew the only reason you’d been allowed on this mission was because, one, you weren’t going to tell anyone anything about the location of the super serum if you weren’t and two, both Bucky and Steve had planted themselves next to you and refused to let you go into the field alone.

At least your muscles - and your brain - weren’t randomly spasming with leftover electricity anymore. Hadn’t that been a fun time? Nothing like having your leg completely convulsing to convince everyone you’re totally fine...

But you were officially off the invalid list, and recovering the serum was a top priority. So here the three of you were. Well, here the two of you were while Bucky braved your hiding place with a shovel and Steve mocked you, the jerk.

“I almost died with a goat as the last thing I saw on the face of this earth, Steve.” You know you’re being unreasonable as you watch Bucky finish filling in the hole in the middle of the pen, but you can’t help it. Goats just...unnerve you now. “Sometimes when I close my eyes I can still see those slitted, creepy eyes watching me. Waiting.”

He’s trying hard not to laugh, but his smile is huge and sputtering noises keep slipping out as his frame shakes around you. And as much as it's very much laughter at you, you can't help but lean into it, because there isn't anything you wouldn't do to put some laughter back into either of your boys.

“If you hate goats, why’d you hide it here?” He finally manages to ask, settling his arms around you.

“I needed to be sure that I’d never come back unless it really, _really_ mattered.” You shudder and feel him laugh again. "Now we have a plan to eliminate Rumlow, and I know what's going to happen to the remaining serum, and while I still don't like Tony, I don't think he's the same kind of man Howard was."

"No." Steve agrees. "He isn't, y/n. He's a good man."

"I'm not willing to go that far just yet."

"He did give you an upgraded tac suit."

"Shuri's is better." It's true, and you know that Stark would agree if you ever let him get a look at some of the things your adopted niece had designed over the years.  “You going to be meeting with that therapist when we get back tonight?”

He nods, placing his chin on the top of your head. “Yeah. Sam says this guy’s good.” It’s an ill-fitting suit, the thought of therapy, but when Bucky told you about all the guilt Steve had been carrying around with him, you’d joined in the ‘therapy is good’ campaign. “I’m a little nervous. Not really sure how this’ll go.”

“It’s usually a little different for everyone.” You tell him as Bucky joins you two, the small pouch in one hand as he swings his legs over the pen fence. “My hero.”

“I like the runty one.” Bucky’s smile goes all the way to his eyes and oh, that’s a sight you could get used to. “Even if he did keep trying to headbutt my leg the whole time.”

“No,” You groan, knowing where this is going as you pull away from Steve. “No, we already have one hyper-aggressive family member.” 

“Hey!” Steve protests as the three of you head back to the jet.

“James, no.” You stop, seeing an-all-too-remembered 'devil may care' glint in those glacial eyes. “James Buchannon Barnes. You are not adopting a goat. Hear me? No.”

“She’s got a thing against goats.” Steve’s shoulders shake again.

“Do I want to know?” Bucky asks.

“No.” You and Steve answer simultaneously.

Sometimes, you think as you walk up the ramp and towards the cockpit, home is a place. And other times...you look over your shoulder...other times home is the sound of your soulmates' laughter and smiles that crease the corners of their eyes.


	31. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Well, well, well, if it isn't me making a liar of myself on when I'd get chapters up...
> 
> Buckle up folks, there's only a handful of chapters left, and our world-weary favorite trio is far from done fighting

It all hits when you make it back to the compound.

There’s a light at the end of this tunnel.

The feeling it pulls from you chokes you so suddenly you actually stumble on the way back to the suite Stark graciously gave the three of you.

Steve is there, scooping you up into his arms, worry writ large all across that handsome face. “Y/n?”

“I’m fine.” You reassure both men as you enter your rooms carried bridal style. “But, I ah, can’t say I mind being swept off my feet like this from time to time. It’s kinda nice.”

“Oh really?” Steve’s grin could light up Brooklyn.

“Now you’ve done it,” Bucky’s groan is melodramatic and you laugh. “You know he’s going to do this all the time now, right?”

At your questioning glance, Steve just gives you another grin and doesn’t correct Bucky. 

You shrug. “I think Bucky’s just feeling a little left out, Stevie.”

“I’ll sweep _him_ off his feet next time.”

Bucky’s eye roll makes you both laugh.

“Think we could make him feel a little more included?” You asked with a suggestive bite of your lower lip, and you watch Steve’s eyes darken.

“What…” He swallows and his voice drops. “What did you have in mind, y/n?”

“Well, we do have this very handy, _very_ large bed. I think all three of us can fit on it, don’t you?” You direct the question to Bucky, who’s hanging back ever so slightly.

“Only one way to find out,” Steve grins over his shoulder at your shared soulmate, and then tosses you. Your shriek turns to giggles as you bounce once before Steve’s body is over yours.

“Do that again,” He demands, fingers already tickling at your sides.

“No!” You cry. “Stevie, no no no. Don’t you...gah! Stop tickling me! Bucky!” You reach out a hand for him. “Bucky, help me!”

Bucky grins at you and digs his metal fingers into Steve’s sides, and the Star Spangled Man jumps about three feet in the air. “Buck!”

“All’s fair in love and war.” Bucky smirks and keeps going, driving Steve over on the mattress next to you until the three of you are breathless and tangled together, Steve sandwiched between the two of you, crying pax in a voice so light and happy it almost hurts.

The universe has never felt so benevolent as it does right now. Steve, all over golden and half under you, one hand sweeping up and down your back while his other hand tangles tightly with Bucky’s, pressing a kiss to the metal with a reverence you’ve only found in churches and temples. And Bucky, to have _your_ Bucky looking out of those cool blue eyes again…

“Hey now,” Steve’s arm tightens around you as you blink rapidly. “Hey, we’re okay, y/n.”

You nod, throat thick, burying your face in the wall of his chest as both your boys shift, sitting up so you end up in Steve’s lap, with Bucky’s warmth inches away from your back and the slightly-cooler vibranium rubbing circles on your back.

“I’m...s-s-s-orry.” You sputter as the water works refuse to stop. “I’m just…”

“Home.” Bucky says, and the  _ knowing _ in his tone has you nodding. “We’re all home.”

It's hours later when you leave your soulmates, sleeping in that massive bed, and creep to the kitchen for sustenance, humming happily.

"You look...limber." Nat laughs as you start, pulling your head out of the fridge. "Sorry. Didn't mean to spook you. How'd it go?"

Your face flushes bright red. Ah...

"The mission," She clarifies, clearly laughing at you. "Though if you want to tell me about your other activities today I'm game. We may need drinks first though."

"No." You shake your head, even as your body heats just thinking about the needy, urgency-driven, multiple rounds - Bless you, Erskine - of sex that had filled the afternoon. "No, I'm good."

Nat's head tilts, considering. "I mean, how does that work, logistically? The three of you? With the sex," She adds and you think 'goddamit Nat' as you try not to squirm because you know she's playing you right now.

"Gah!" Tony sputters, having walked in at the wrong moment. "No! Bad widow!" He levels a grumpy glare in your direction. "There's a reason I put the most high quality soundproofing around your room - so I would never have to think about that." He gags and shudders. "Capsicle sex. Ugh."

"Feeling insecure, Tony?" You tease.

His retort is pithy and succinct.

"Since you're both here," You shift topics. "I need a favor from you..."


	32. Deadlier Species

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: Second to last chapter - I apologize that it's taking me so long to get new chapters up on my WIP's, but am happy to finally be moving on that front again! As always, unbeta-ed

_ Two Weeks Later... _

It’s an all-out brawl from the moment Rumlow and his hired mercenaries breach the compound. They make straight for the Vault, where Stark secured the remaining samples of the serum. Steve and Bucky are somewhere between the Vault and the gym, having been mid-training session, but you? You’re minutes behind Rumlow, close enough to tackle him as he’s opening the case holding the serum.

It goes sliding away and you slam your fist into his jaw, pile-driving him down to the ground where he sweeps your legs out from under you. You let gravity do the work for you and pitch him in an Aikido-based throw across the room.

Your smile is shades of gleeful as he groans and pushes himself to his feet. You owe him, and the nice thing about living for such a long time? You always get to pay your debts.

“I’m getting that serum.” He growls.

“Not in this lifetime,” You promise as you close back in.

You lose track of the blows and blocks and breaths. You catch him in the ribs and he slams a gauntleted fist into your knee on the way down that sends your joint screaming in agony.

“Nice toy, right?” He pants as you stagger apart, showing off the gauntlet on his arm. “Packs a punch. Chitauri tech. Figured I’d need to make this a fairer fight.”

“Oh good,” You mean it. “I really didn’t want this to be over too quickly, and I hear that can be a problem for guys your age. What’s it called again?” You mock. “Performance issues?”

His roar is wordless as he charges at you, arms swinging in rage.

Your back hits the wall and you use it to brace yourself as you drive your knee forward into his midsection and feel something crack under the pressure. This time when he staggers away, he spits up blood.

“I’m going to get that serum.” He promises, wiping the crimson across his lips like clown make-up gone wrong. “I deserve it. I’m taking it.”

“I’ve never met someone less deserving of Erskine’s formula.” You tell him flatly. “And I remember Johann Schmidt, so that’s saying something, Rumlow. The bar?” You use your hand to gesture at about chest height. “Was about...here.” You move it to your shins. “And yet, somehow, you manage to trip over the fucking thing.”

“You’re a lot of talk without Cap and your buddy Barnes to back you up.” Rumlow rolls his shoulders, feints and you pull back as he grins. “I don’t think you’re quite as tough as the boys. It’s not your fault,” He adds, taunting you back now. “It’s the animal kingdom, right? Predatory evolution. Kings of the jungle.”

“Actually,” You move as he swings forward with a blade that goes glancing off your forearm as you step in close, locking out his elbow and twisting his arm up and behind him, driving all two hundred some pounds of muscled asshole to his knees with a scream as you force the shoulder to its end of range of motion. “The female lion is a lot more deadly than the male.”

Bucky and Steve skid into the room, panting, staring at you while Rumlow cries and tries to reach up to free his arm, only to stop as you put a little more pressure on the joint. 

“Hey boys.” You grin at your lovers. “What took ya so long?”

“That is a picture I’m going to frame in my memory palace.” You promise yourself as the U.N. prison pod rolls by, Rumlow secured safely inside, several shades of purple and green and yellow bruises rising to the surface after his beatdown. “Just...just perfect.”

“The U.N. thanks you for your help in apprehending one Brock Rumlow.” Everett Ross’ tone is mild-mannered, but you sense there’s a little genuine pleasure there as he hands Steve a file. “And regarding the other issue, I think you’ll find that’s been resolved. The Wakandans went to bat for your buddy. I hope you thank them for it.”

Steve’s grin is incandescent as he hands Bucky his official pardon. “We did it, Buck.”

“Cap,” Fury stalks over to join your little pod. “Sergeant Barnes. Y/n. Nice work on this one. World’s a lot safer than it was this morning. It’s why it needs you-”

“I quit.” The words spill out of Steve’s mouth so fast they almost sound like one word and he flushes under Fury’s stunned stare. “I’ll help you train a replacement, but I’m...I’m done, Fury.” His voice strengthens. “I need to be done.”

Fury nods, turns to take in your and Barnes under that hyper-critical eye. “I don’t suppose…”

You’re already shaking your head, and Bucky is too. “S.H.I.E.L.D. literally could not pay me enough to come work for them.” You tell him.

“And I think,” Bucky wraps an arm around you, uncaring of the public display of affection. “I think after eighty-some years, I need to look into a new line of work.”

“So, what’s the big deal?” Sam is, understandably, a little nervous as Steve joins the three of you in the conference room. “This is all very hush hush.”

It’s been four days since Rumlow was apprehended, two days since Fury officially filed the paperwork for Steve’s retirement, and you and the boys are just...ready. Ready to take time away, together. You’re heading to a safe house - one of yours - in Bimini in the morning, but there’s a tiny bit of business you need to finish up before the rest of your lives can start.

“We’re retiring.”

“I saw the announcement.” The amusement is clear on his face as he sinks into a chair opposite you. “I also put a couple hundred in Barton’s betting pool. No way does the world just let Captain America  _ retire _ .”

“About that…” Bucky starts.

Sam’s eyes narrow on Steve. “Oh man, if you come back before three weeks, I lose out. Don’t. Don’t do this to me, man.”

“I’m out, Sam. For real this time.” Steve’s voice is confident, certain. You won’t tell Sam that he’s practiced this speech about a hundred times in your bathroom mirror. It was adorable. “And I’m not planning on coming back. But you’re right - the world needs Captain America.” He places the shield on the table, pushes it towards Sam. “I can’t think of anyone more suited to the job.”

Sam’s eyes are wide.

“You do what I do,” Steve says with a wry grin. “Just slower.”

You laugh - you can’t help it, and Bucky’s hand tightens around yours as one edge of those lips curves up in a shy smile. 

“I...I...Are you...I can’t…” Sam is at a loss for words, but his fingers are ghosting over the surface of the shield with appreciation. “Are you sure? There’s...there’s a lot of history with this shield. A lot of people won’t be happy to see it handed off, let alone to...well, me.”

Steve was right, you realize. Sam was the perfect choice. He’s no shiny penny new recruit too hyped up on the title to think through the implications of what’s in front of him - he’s seasoned, and he understands the weight he’ll be taking up if he lifts that shield isn’t just physical.

“I honestly can’t think of anyone else I’d rather leave it in the hands of.” Steve admits.

The silence grows as Sam continues to look at the shield in stunned shock, until you can’t stand it. 

“There’s one catch to this proposition.” You see Steve’s eyebrow quirk up in surprise.

“What?” Sam asks, wariness at your tone.

“If you say no,” And God knows you understand that lifting that shield is a choice...It has to be, like any mantle of power. “You’re the one who has to tell Fury.”

Steve coughs into his fist, hiding a laugh.

Bucky’s smile grows wide.

Sam lets out a little laugh, pulls the shield towards him. “I’ll take it. But what about you all? You’re really...you’re really doing it?”

“We’re really doing it.” Steve confirms, placing his hand over top yours and Bucky’s. The love in his eyes as he looks at the two of you could burn, and you know he sees the same when he looks at both of you. “I’m going to get fat and lazy on a beach somewhere.”

Sam laughs. “Well you’ve definitely earned it, Cap.”

"It's all set?" You ask Nat's figure on the kiyomo beads as you look out at the water, the beach just steps from where you're standing in the shade of the porch of the safe house. "You had everything taken care of?"

Nat smiles. "Yeah. And I even convinced Stark to keep it a secret."

"You're the best, Tasha."

"Damn right. I'm going to tell Barnes you said so next time he starts a pissing match." You share a laugh. "But yeah, paperwork's all done up and good to go. Sent you a little something by courier, by the way. Should be getting there this morning-"

There's a knock on the door and you give her an arched brow and she gives you a smug smile as you open the door, sign for the envelope, and return to the viewpoint you've come to love in the four weeks you've all been here.

Four weeks.

Four glorious, sunny weeks of laughing and loving until you feel saturated with it. Watching your soulmates rediscover themselves, without the pressure of the past, and the three of you to rediscover each other.

You'd forgotten, for example, that Bucky talked in his sleep. Or how Steve would sprawl across the bed like a human blanket one night, then curl into the smallest ball the next.

A short bark of laughter pulled your eyes to the beach where Steve had just kicked water at Bucky, who was laughing and returning fire.

"That's a smile that says a lot," Nat's voice was soft as you looked back at the display. "It's good to see you happy, y/n. I'm glad you found it. Gives me hope for my own ending."

"Any time you want out..."

She laughs, shaking her head already. "Maybe someday."

"Just say the word..." Your own words fail as you open the envelope and three sets of keys spill into your hands. "Oh. Oh Nat. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Her gaze is pulled away, and the softness vanishes from her face even as she's turning back. "Well, duty calls. Speaking of, you better call me whenever the three of you decide to come home. I will take it personally if you ghost on me twice in one lifetime."

You promise to call, and the connection is severed with the abruptness you've grown accustomed to from any of the Avengers when the action is happening somewhere else.

"Whatcha got?" Bucky asks as he and Steve climb the steps. "Keys? What are the keys for? Please tell me you didn't let this idiot talk you into buying a motorcycle."

"They aren't those kinds of keys." Steve rolls his eyes, wraps his arms around Bucky and rubs his regrown beard against the bare skin where Bucky's neck meets his shoulder, just to be obnoxious. "What are they for, babe?"

"I, ah..." You'd asked Tony and Nat to help you with this surprise weeks ago, and you'd been so certain...but now? Now it was time, and you were actually a little nervous. What if you'd overstepped? What if they didn't want it?

"Babe?"

You blinked, realized you'd been squeezing the keys in your hand. "Oh. Sorry. I, uh, I asked Nat and Tony to do something for me. A few weeks ago. For us, really, but if you don't like it or want it that's okay..."

Your boys are amused by your run on ramble and you have to give yourself a little shake. 

"Spit it out, doll." Bucky tells you, breaking away from Steve's embrace, leaving the golden haired part of your trio pouting.

"IboughtusanapartmentinBrooklyn."


	33. Fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: It's the end! Thanks for reading, commenting, kudos-ing! 
> 
> Also, I'm a soft sappy bastard (but you knew that already) so enjoy the gentle and somewhat smutty final chapter/epilogue

“Fifth?” Steve sputters as you and Bucky laugh again, spilling out of the elevator and onto the top floor of your apartment building. “Fifth place? It’s absurd!”

Bucky is actually giggling and you aren’t too far behind as he fumbles with the lock and then you’re tumbling into the apartment while Steve continues to pout, trailing behind the two of you as you shed shoes and hats and coats and sundry.

It’s so domestically simple as moments go, but it lights you up inside to slide your keys into the little misshapen bowl - courtesy of Bucky’s foray into pottery, the first of many adventures to turn his hands towards something creative rather than destructive - on the counter as Steve half-heel kicks the door shut behind himself, still muttering darkly under his breath.

And you have a lifetime - a long one - to keep adding to those little moments you’ve been building together since you came back from Bimini a month ago.

Bucky’s arms slide around you, draping warm metal and flesh over your shoulders as he nibbles on your ear and you yelp and laugh and shove him away with a ruffle of his newly shorn hair and he swats your ass playfully before heading to the side of the fridge where the takeout flyers live.

“Thai? Curry? Ooh...Sushi? Any preference?” He calls absently over his shoulder.

“No preference. Just try to make sure some of us can actually eat it this time, Mr. Spice Is A Food Group.” You tell him and notice Steve is still scowling down at his certificate as if it has personally insulted him, his family, and his ancestors. “Stevie, really?”

The eyebrows of disappointment are drawn together as he looks up at you. “Fifth place, y/n. In my own lookalike contest!”

“It’s kind of comforting.” Bucky points out as you hop up onto the countertop, swinging your legs. “I mean, we were all a little worried about getting recognized, living in Brooklyn again…” His hand runs through his hair, still getting used to the length. “But no one sees us, not really. They just..see whatever they want to see, and...It’s...nice. Ordinary.”

“Yeah, once Steve started developing a sense of fashion-” Your words die as said soulmate silences your favorite way - by pressing his lips to yours and kissing the breath out of you.

“You were saying?”

“What?”

“Thought so.” Smugness suffuses that handsome face and he pulls you in for another kiss that makes your heart stop and race all at the same time. When you break apart this time, both of you are breathing heavy, and the blue of his eyes has been nearly erased by pupils blown with the kind of hunger that takeaway won’t satisfy.

“No.” Bucky shakes a takeout flyer at the pair of you. “I am  _ starving _ . Food first. Then sex.”

You laugh as Steve pulls you against him, burying your face in the crook of his neck, and breathe in the feeling of home.

“Why does this feel so familiar?” Bucky growls later that night, nipping his way along your collarbone, one hand pinning your wrists overhead against the wall.

You grind your hips against his, grinning with victory as he lets out a low groan and grinds back as Steve leans against the doorway, mead bottle dangling from long fingers, half forgotten as he watches the pair of you, your legs hiked around Bucky’s waist, back against the wall as Bucky’s hand cups your ass. “There may have been a night like it, long ago.”

“Sounds like a memory I may actually want.” He chuckles, a ripe, deep sound as you shiver under his lips. “God, doll...wanna see you come undone for me.”

The needy whine that escapes your lips at the words would normally embarrass you, but for him? For when you’re with him and Steve? There’s no room for embarrassment. Just desire and trust and love that is thick and hot and heady in his veins as Bucky lets go of your wrists so he can part your folds, teasing you while your hands clench at his shoulders, tangle in his hair.

He’d been worried - leaving the beach and safehouse - that somehow, things would change. That it’d somehow erase those weeks of simple pleasure, simple connection.

Every passing day was proving that worry wrong.

And in the moments like now? When he could feel Steve’s eyes on him like a brand? Feel your body clench and tighten around his fingers? To know with certainty that he could do this all night without fear of repercussions or loss, and wake up in the morning to your soft snores and Steve’s octopus embrace?

Brooklyn might’ve been where he was born, but you and Steve?

You were  _ home _ .

“Please, baby.” You barely manage to breathe the words, pushing your hips forward in a soundless cry for  _ more _ , and he’s sunk. He’d gone over the edge of the cliff for you back in the war, and even with everything that’s happened all these years, he’d do it all over again to have you coming apart under his touch like this for the rest of your lives. “Need you.”

“Need you too.” He confesses to the shell of your ear, sending another shiver through you as his fingers sink deep, roughly, in contrast to the gentle kiss he places on your neck. “Need you both.” He growls as he starts to pump his fingers in and out, lets his eyes slide to the doorway and to Steve, who’s smile says he’s content with enjoying the view just fine, but not for long. “Just you. Just you two.”

And he pushes you over the edge for your first - but definitely not last - orgasm of the night.

Towel wrapped around his waist, Steve can’t help but grin at the sight of you curled up, half draped over Bucky in your shared bed.

“I still can’t get used it.” He tells Bucky, whose fingers are weaving through your hair.

Bucky snorts, stills as you shift from the movement. “Right? How does someone so small make so much noise?”

“Exactly.” Steve trades the towel for a pair of sweats, knowing full well he’ll kick them off in the night. He knows it’s more mental than anything else - he wants to feel covered physically when he feels so vulnerable, even though there’s no one here but the three of you. His therapist had taught him that it was okay, so long as he acknowledged why he was doing it and stayed aware of it.

He’s learning that he doesn’t have to always be the Captain, doesn’t always have to invincible or impervious. Not any time, but especially here, in this home they’re making with you. Learning to let go of hyper-vigilance is a battle that's going to take a lifetime, but as he looks at the two parts of his soul, he knows he's not alone.

Bucky’s eyes are knowing as he climbs into bed, laughing quietly again as you - even asleep - reach out a hand for Steve. You sigh softly, content as your hand finds the curve of his body, and drift back into deeper sleep, nuzzling Bucky on the other side of you.

“We really made it, didn’t we?” Steve asks because honestly, some days he can’t believe it.

“Yeah. Yeah we did.”

“We’re not the same as we were before.” The words stick a little as he thinks about where they started - a sickly body and raging heart for himself, an incredibly capable body and mind with a vulnerable heart for Bucky - and where they are now. “Not like...well, before.”

“We never will be, Stevie. We’ve...all three of us, we’ve done too much. Seen too much. It’s worth it though.” Bucky chuckles and taps Steve's nose as he makes a face, thinking about Hydra and all the shit they’ve gone through. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t change things. But maybe it’s...maybe it played out the way it needed to. Here? Now? We can be together, all three of us. That’s...that’s worth everything. You - both of you - are everything.” He means it, eyes blue as ice but warm, so warm with love and happiness until Steve can’t help but feel like his chest is going to burst with it.

“You’re an incurable romantic, aren’t you, Buck?” It’d been the best discovery of their retirement so far, at least to Steve. To discover his best friend, the former Winter Soldier, loved leaving hand-written notes, and handing Steve chocolate kisses 'just because I wanted to 'kiss' you, and picking up your favorite baked goods on their way back from morning runs...To find that Bucky, after everything, still had that capacity for softness, was actively reclaiming it.

Well, like Bucky had said, with you curled between them in your bed in the heart of Brooklyn.

It was everything.

~Fin~


End file.
